2016 Weekend Kickoff & Tibet Engagement Fair | Friday, December 2nd
An interactive evening to learn more about civic engagement in Tibet and to network with different Tibetan service groups.
An interactive evening to learn more about civic engagement in Tibet and to network with different Tibetan service groups.
Tibet Engagement Fair Participants
19 organizations participated at this year's Tibet Engagement Forum:
ACHA HIMALAYAN SISTERHOOD | ADHIKAAR | BRAILLE WITHOUT BORDERS | LÂMTÖN | MACHIK | MOTHER'S WISH | NOMADIC SURVIVAL COMMITTEE | ONLINE TIBETAN EDUCATION | ONLINE BUDDHISM CLASS | POCKET MONEY PROJECT | TIBET BOOK CLUB | THE TREASURY OF LIVES | TIBETAN OF MIXED HERITAGE | TIBETAN RESETTLEMENT STORIES | UNION OF PROPHETS | VOICES OF HIMALAYAS | WORLD SYSTEM BUILDER | YINDAYIN | ZOMSHOW
4:30PM | Registration
5:00PM | Reception & Photo Exhibition
5:30PM | Film Screening | Vulture
6:00PM | Performance by Tenzin Norbu Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) Artists
6:30PM | Celebrating Impact
7:00PM | Tibet Engagement Fair
8:30PM | Music & Dance
9:00PM | Closing
5:00PM | Reception & Photo Exhibition
5:30PM | Film Screening | Vulture
6:00PM | Performance by Tenzin Norbu Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) Artists
6:30PM | Celebrating Impact
7:00PM | Tibet Engagement Fair
8:30PM | Music & Dance
9:00PM | Closing
ACHA HIMALAYAN SISTERHOOD
www.achahimalayansisterhood.org
ACHA Himalayan Sisterhood serves immigrant and refugee women and young girls in the US, India, Nepal, and Tibet. In the California Bay Area ACHA helps the women of emerging Himalayan communities through training and leadership development. It also supports programs for women, girls and seniors in refugee settlements in India and Nepal through small grants. ACHA supports Tibetans inside Tibet by raising funds for Tibetan-led initiatives, which includes partnerships and collaborations with existing organizations that promote education, health, economic development and women’s empowerment in Tibet. ACHA is a volunteer-run group, co-founded by service-oriented Tibetan women motivated by a desire to give back to their communities. Their mission is to create safe, supportive, and inclusive spaces for women to empower each other.
ADHIKAAR
Adhikaar, meaning "rights" in Nepali, is a New York-based non-profit organization working with the Nepali-speaking community to promote human rights and social justice for all. We are the only women-led worker and community center that serves and organizes the Nepali-speaking immigrant and refugee community. We have assisted thousands of individuals and families, trained hundreds of new leaders, and successfully changed policies and created new laws at local, state, national, and international levels, including the New York State Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, Nail Salon Workers Bill of Rights and the International Domestic Workers' Convention. Adhikaar has worked hard to give our community a fighting chance to live a healthy and productive life in New York City. Just recently, regulatory and legislative changes were made to include Nepali, Tibetan and Vietnamese options for the nail technician licensing exams. Government documents about nail salons are now available in Nepali and Tibetan.
BRAILLE WITHOUT BORDERS
www.braillewithoutborders.org
Braille Without Borders wants to empower blind people from these countries so they themselves can set up projects and schools for other blind people. In this way the concept can be spread across the globe so more blind and visually impaired people have access to education and a better future. Braille Without Borders commenced in 1998 in Lhasa with the opening of the first rehabilitation and training centre for the blind in the Tibetan Autonomous Region.
LÂMTÖN
https://lamtonmn.org/about/
In order to promote higher education within the Minnesota Tibetan-American community, LÂMTÖN, a Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota (TAFM) program, provides Tibetan high school students with an opportunity to increase academic success through tutoring sessions, a one-to-one mentoring program and many college readiness events throughout the year.
NYANBO YURTSE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ASSOCIATION
Tashi Sangpo, one of Tibet's leading conservationists, established Nyanbo Yutse Environmental Protection Association in 2007. Its members consist of local monks, nomads, businessman, teachers, students, and civil servants. It works to monitor and record the drastic changes of species and environment through text, pictures, and photographs. The association also works to promote the awareness of environmental protection amongst local nomads and young kids in Tibet.
MACHIK
www.machik.org
The work of Machik began with a primary school in the heart of Kham, Eastern Tibet. Opened in 2002, the Chungba Primary School became a runaway success story in its first year of operation by placing first across 53 schools in the county. In the years since then, the Chungba Primary School has become a model for rural Tibetan education across Ganzi prefecture - a region of nearly a million Tibetans. The work of Machik has expanded year after year, growing organically and incrementally in new directions and is currently organized around six program areas: The Chungba Project, Summer Enrichment Programs, Women's Initiative, Youth Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship, and Governance.
MOTHER'S WISH
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KtDYnca40
Machik has also developed and launched Mother’s Wish, a program to sponsor the education of young women. Now established as a registered NGO in its own right in Qinghai, Mother’s Wish has supported over two thousand young Tibetan women through middle, high school and college education. To date, 112 young women have received their undergraduate degree. Currently, there are over 500 young women receiving support from the scholarship program. Machik continues to be the angel sponsor of Mother’s Wish, providing for all operational costs to ensure that the program can continue. Through a rigorous selection process, young women are identified who show special aptitude for study, but who would not have the opportunity to continue their education without outside intervention. In addition to providing an education, Mother’s Wish seeks to promote a commitment to service among the young women by supporting community outreach efforts to help seniors and the poor.
NOMADIC SURVIVAL COMMITTEE
www.nomadicsurvival.org
Nomadic Survival Committee supports and works with nomadic and semi-nomadic communities in the Himalayas, particularly mother and babies within those communities. NSC provides support, information and training in reproductive heath and general health training for mothers and children and prevention of TB/HIV/AIDS/Hepatitus B.
ONLINE TIBETAN EDUCATION
www.onlinetibetaneducation.com
Founded in 2011, Online Tibetan Education (OTE) is a non-profit, volunteer driven group dedicated to imparting basic Tibetan education to Tibetans, particularly young Tibetans, by means of the internet.Focusing on places with limited numbers of Tibetan teachers and religious centers, OTE seeks to preserve Tibetan culrure by providing an online platform for learning Tibetan and Buddhism. OTE hopes to help develop 21st century Buddhists by offering ONlinle Buddhism Classes (OBC) and spread the Tibetan language by offering online Tibetan Language Classes (TLC).
ONLINE BUDDHISM CLASS
www.facebook.com/OnlineBuddhismClass
Online Buddhism Class is an initiative taken to impart basic knowledge of Buddhism into the Tibetan population in general and Tibetan youth in particular. In order to provide quality Buddhist education to Tibetan people living all around the world, especially in those places where there are no Tibetan religious centers and preachers, we present 'Online Buddhism Class: Free, Convenient and Enlightening'. In order to preserve our language and rich culture, the classes will be taught in Tibetan. In the near future, we plan to start Online Tibetan Language and History Class.
POCKET MONEY PROJECT
www.pocketmoneyproject.org
Pocket Money Project promotes economic independence for some of the underprivileged kids at Tibetan Children Village school in upper Dharamsala, India by providing a network of additional financial assistance to help them thrive in their school life. This project is also committed to finding ways to help the needed "pockets" in the exile community.
TIBET BOOK CLUB
www.tibetbookclub.wordpress.com
DC Tibet book club meets each month to discuss a Tibet-related book. Tibet Book Club was started in 2011 for conversations on books and exchange of ideas. Started as a gathering for Tibetans interested in books on Tibet, the DC Tibetan Book Club has become a stimulating forum that meets every month. The club has read and discussed many books and articles to date and has provided understanding and open discourse on a wide range of topics for its members.
THE TREASURY OF LIVES
www.treasuryoflives.org
The Treasury of Lives is an online biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia and the Himalayan region. As of November 2016, the expanding site contains 1156 biographies, written by a growing community of scholars from North America, Asia and Europe, many of them peer-reviewed. These biographies, complete with the most extensive bibliographies available, are intended as a resource to both the general public and researchers in the field. Each biography is illustrated with relevant art from the Rubin Museum of Art and other esteemed collections, with links to Himalayan Art Resources (www.himalayanart.org) and the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (www.tbrc.org). The highly navigable interface, which includes an interactive map of Asia and timelines for each institution and religious tradition, allows visitors to search figures by historical period, geography, monastery, clan or religious affiliation. With an active online presence and a growing online community, these biographies are reaching approximately 5,000 users every month.
TIBETANS OF MIXED HERITAGE
www.mixedtibetans.net
Tibetans of Mixed Parentage was founded in 2014 as a global network of people who are of Tibetan descent, with both Tibetan and non-Tibetan heritage. We aim to provide a platform for members to explore and develop their identity as Tibetans of mixed heritage and serve as a launchpad for their engagement and contribution to the wider Tibetan community.
TIBETAN RESETTLEMENT STORIES
www.soundcloud.com/trsboston
This is a community project to honor and document the experiences of the first 50 Tibetans who arrived in Boston in the early 1990s as members of the Tibetan Resettlement Stories (TRS). Members of our group are mainly second-generation Tibetans, eager to learn more about the lives of our parents and other elders as they bridged Tibetan and American cultures right here in Boston. We also include Western friends closely allied with the Tibetan community as sponsors and activists engaged with the Tibetan freedom struggle.
UNION OF PROPHETS
www.unionofprophets.com
Union of Prophets is a contemporary men’s clothing line. Our pieces reflect Tibetan Hip Hop Culture and are the creations of rapper Exiled Prophet based in New York City.
WORLD SYSTEM BUILDER
www.worldsystembuilder.com
World System Builder is a financial company that has branches in all states of the US and some parts of Canada. We have a goal to educate 1 million people in North America on financial knowledge by 2020. We also work with a non-profit organization called Heartland Institute of Financial Education (http://hife-usa.org/programs/college/); they have a college planning program that gives students personal coaching, career guidance, helps plan for college tuition, and advises on college selection.The students will be mentored by retired professors who have 25+ years of experiences. We want to set up our table at Machik Weekend to spread the words among Tibetans and encourage them to take advantage of these opportunities.
YINDAYIN
www.facebook.com/YindaYinCoaching/
Our mission is to preserve Tibetan language and provide low-income immigrant children access to education that is not provided in the public school system. We believe our program is one of the pathways that will help recent immigrant families achieve their American dream by receiving consistent and high quality tutoring and mentor-ship. We also plan to offer job-training programs for adults who may need instructions in their various mother languages. We believe our organization’s mission is crucial as the population low-income families of immigrant continue increase in Queens. Our service is needed more than ever before as the country faces structural inequality in education due to socioeconomic disparities. We would like to provide an educational service that is usually reserved for children of wealthy families to low-income families and first generation immigrant children.
VOICES OF HIMALAYAS
www.elalliance.org/languages/himalayas
Voices of the Himalayas (VOH): VOH is a project designed to respond to the urgent challenges of language loss and rapid cultural change among individuals and communities from the greater Himalayan region as they have migrated to the New York City area. The goal of this project is to ensure that cultural knowledge, oral histories, and the region’s linguistic diversity is not lost during this transition as well as to facilitate communication between the generations of these communities. The results are culturally sensitive open-access resources archived at Endangered Language Alliance for all who are interested, creating a space in which Kyi-dug, joy, and suffering of immigrant life can be shared- to use a uniquely resonant Himalayan word.
In addition to the 19 organizations at this year's Tibetan Engagement Fair, there were books and CDs for sale by Tibetan authors and musicians.
Sholong by Palmo Tso
Sholung (bZho lung) is the first ever anthology of contemporary Tibetan women's writing to appear in any language. We are pleased that this historic collection gathers the voices of women writing exclusively in Tibetan. Through the efforts of editor and impresario Palmo Tso Sholong opened a new creative space for Tibetan women poets and essayists from across the plateau. The collection, consisting of 120 writings by 23 Tibetan female writers, was published in 2005 wit the financial support of Machik. Sholong serves to capture, but also encourage, the voice of Tibetan women.
Sholong by Palmo Tso
Sholung (bZho lung) is the first ever anthology of contemporary Tibetan women's writing to appear in any language. We are pleased that this historic collection gathers the voices of women writing exclusively in Tibetan. Through the efforts of editor and impresario Palmo Tso Sholong opened a new creative space for Tibetan women poets and essayists from across the plateau. The collection, consisting of 120 writings by 23 Tibetan female writers, was published in 2005 wit the financial support of Machik. Sholong serves to capture, but also encourage, the voice of Tibetan women.
Melodies of the White Cranes by Lobsang Thutop
A collection of folk songs that flourished in the Lithang area for hundreds of years. Rich in story and deep in meaning, the folk songs of Tibet are quickly disappearing. Lobsang Thutop, a teacher at Chungba School, has taken up the challenge of documenting folk songs to preserve them for the future generations.
A collection of folk songs that flourished in the Lithang area for hundreds of years. Rich in story and deep in meaning, the folk songs of Tibet are quickly disappearing. Lobsang Thutop, a teacher at Chungba School, has taken up the challenge of documenting folk songs to preserve them for the future generations.
An awakening call to protect the earth, understand the situation of the environment, regain the ability to love and care, and to create a better world for future generations. From a young age, Drolma envisioned a world filled with warmth and harmony and wrote this trilingual book Nirvana touching upon these topics. Drolma was born in Ngawa and currently lives there. She has tended the needs of elders and kids from impoverished families and is a leader of a team of 80 volunteers. In addition to her work in photography, Drolma designs clothes. Her design aesthetics includes the combination of western features with conventional Tibetan elements.
"The Bright of Sound" by Pema Wangchuk
An album by Pema Wangchuk, a blind Tibetan singer born into a semi nomadic family from Shigatse. Pema attended Braille Without Borders school for the blind in Shigatse to learn massage therapy and Dramunyan. Currently, he is running a massage center in Lhasa. Pema has always enjoyed singing from a young age and performed at local nangmas (music bars). After three years of hard work and effort, he released his debut album “The Bright of Sound” in July, 2016. Pema Wangchuk is dedicated to the preservation of the Tibetan language through music. Through his album, Pema intends to tell the world that no matter what difficulties and obstacles you encounter in your life, your passion and love will clear the pathway for you to follow your dreams.
An album by Pema Wangchuk, a blind Tibetan singer born into a semi nomadic family from Shigatse. Pema attended Braille Without Borders school for the blind in Shigatse to learn massage therapy and Dramunyan. Currently, he is running a massage center in Lhasa. Pema has always enjoyed singing from a young age and performed at local nangmas (music bars). After three years of hard work and effort, he released his debut album “The Bright of Sound” in July, 2016. Pema Wangchuk is dedicated to the preservation of the Tibetan language through music. Through his album, Pema intends to tell the world that no matter what difficulties and obstacles you encounter in your life, your passion and love will clear the pathway for you to follow your dreams.