Educational Projects

Schools in Tibet

This project takes care of some already existent infant schools in the Shigatse area of Central Tibet. These extremely poor schools, made up of 3 to 4 rooms, are constructed of mud bricks with beaten earth floors and are almost completely without equipment or furniture.
Village schools offer instruction only up to the third year. The school of Nye is the only one in this district that offers education up to the sixth class and therefore also has to offer very basic residential facilities, because of the lack of transport, to the 200 children who come from surrounding villages.
The schools often lack desks, chairs, money for heating, to buy books and scholastic materials, to carry out basic maintenance such as roof repairs and the replacement of broken glass that is so necessary due to the extreme climate of Tibet. Donations received by the Association are used to cover these expenses. Thanks to funds raised for the schools project, the Shongma Shang Village school was completely rebuilt in order to replace the existing dangerous building. Other donations were used to buy blankets and mattresses for the children of Nye School, who slept on wooden palettes and were badly covered, due to the lack of blankets, against the extreme climatic conditions. Many of the children “adopted at a distance” in Tibet attend one of these schools, and in these villages the numbers of children able to receive an education is growing.
For children who do not receive any help it is very difficult for them to attend school, because their families have no income and therefore not even the small amount of money needed to buy school materials, but these parents also need to give up help in the fields, with younger siblings, with the animals, for the collecting of fuel and so on.
Thanks to funds collected from the end of 2004 and in 2005, two new schools have been built in villages that the Association helps.

Nepu School
At the beginning of 2005, thanks to a donation from the Italian company Chiesi Farmaceutici, the construction of a new school in Nepu Village was started. By the month of August scholastic activities were already underway, thanks to the arrival of a new teacher from the city of Lhasa.
The school building consists of three classrooms (from class 1 to 3), rooms for the teacher and his family, a large assembly room, a storeroom and a kitchen; it is situated in a courtyard protected by a surrounding wall, where the children have planted lots of small trees, so precious at this altitude for their life.
Soon new desks and chairs will arrive for the school, as well as a stock of books and stationary.
The children are already hard at work studying in their new school, and in return for this big gift they give to us their most beautiful smiles.

Pandin School
Last year the inhabitants of Pandin Village asked the Association for help because the old village school, a small precarious building situated on the rocks near the banks of a small river, which when full has threatened more than once the safety of the actual building and its occupants.
Thanks to the funds collected it was possible to buy materials to build a new school, which in the summer of 2005 was already finished and working.
The women of the village came one by one to offer gifts to the representatives of the Association – cups of tea, barley beer, a handful of incense, a white Tibetan scarf – testimony of the immense gratitude that these mothers feel for those who have helped their children so much.

Samling Nursery, Kathmandu, Nepal

Nearby the office of the Association in Kathmandu, a small nursery school was constructed a number of years ago to provide free education for the poorest children of the area. It is a pleasant and well-equipped environment and a great help for the mothers who often have to work full-time in local carpet factories. Without this facility they would have to take their children to work or leave them in the charge of elder brothers and sisters, making it even more difficult for them to attend school. Everyday a small truck collects the children near their homes and takes them home in the evening.
Many of the children “adopted at a distance” through the Association make use of this facility, where the dedicated teachers use the Montessori method to teach the alphabet, numbers and a little English.
Schools in the area confirm that the children who pass through this nursery are well prepared and ready to learn, and this is a reason for the teachers to be proud!
Outside of the nursery is a small fully equipped play park and lawn where the children can play safely and peacefully.

In 2003, at the side of this nursery, the construction of Gangchen Samling School was finished.

Gangchen Samling School, Nepal

In the same complex as Samling Nursery and the office of the Association in Kathmandu, Nepal, the construction of Gangchen Samling School was completed and inaugurated in 2003. The school offers the best possible education to many children from poor families, for whom education – by payment in Nepal, would otherwise be impossible. The school is registered with the Nepal Government and follows the national education programmes.
The three-storey building has luminous classrooms and is well equipped. Each floor has bathroom facilities and filtered drinking water. There are offices for the school management and library, and spaces pre-destined for the future establishment of laboratories dedicated to language and computers as well as to science and technology. Also foreseen are sports fields and out door play facilities.
During the scholastic year 2003/4 – thanks to a staff of 15 teachers – 245 children attended the nursery and classes 1 to 5. From the beginning of the 2004/5 session, the numbers of students increased and the school extended its capacity in order to provide class 6 facilities.
The majority of students who attend the school are adopted at a distance through the Association Help in Action. All the students of the school receive periodic medical check-ups from the Himalayan Healing Centre Clinic Clinic.
The School also intends to offer students, other than the normal formal education, a programme of education about peace and tolerance, centred in particular around the vast multiethnic and multi-religious traditions of Nepal; it was also take into consideration the principal spiritual values, common to all religious traditions.

Vocational Training, Kathmandu – Nepal

The Kathmandu office of the Association organises sewing and knitting courses in order to help mothers, often widowed or separated from their husbands, who find themselves in very difficult economic situations. During the full time course the women receive a monthly allowance that ensures that they can complete their training without having to worry about making money to feed their children. The aim of the course is to train the women so they will eventually become self-sufficient, thanks to a new trade, and be able to provide for both themselves and their families.

A project of short vocational training courses is also under preparation for Gangchen Samling School – electricians, plumbers, tailors – aimed at the many young unemployed who have no other possibility of finding free training.