A Tong-Len sponsor is organising a yoga retreat and cultural tour (Delhi, Agra and Dharamsala) from the 30th October to the 12th November. $100 USD per person is being donated to the work of Tong-Len. Please click here for more information.

The multinational electronics company, Hewlet- Packard, has generously donated ten desktop and two laptop computers for use by the hostel children. These have now been successfully installed in the dedicated computer room in the new hostel for the older children. These computers will be a wonderful resource for learning and for the hostel children communicating with their sponsors once a stable and reliable internet connection has been established. We hope this will happen within a few weeks.

On the 19th November His Holiness the Dalai Lama honoured Tong-Len by inaugurating the hostel buildings. His Holiness expressed deep concern over the increasing gap between rich and poor in Indian society. He said that every human being, whether rich or poor, has the desire and the right to lead a dignified and happy life. 'All human beings are the same in the context of their birth and death. The difference between them on the basis of nationality, religion and cast is a secondary issue'. He said that both rich and poor should understand their responsibilities to lessen the disimilarity within society. Rich people should offer better facilities of education and health for the poor, and people living in the slums should appreciate that the wealth of the rich has not come from the sky but has been earned by hard work and that this should be a motivating factor for them. In his speech, the chief Indian guest, Mr Shanta Kumar, Member of the Indian Parliament and former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, acknowledged the important work being carried out by Tong-Len and offered a donation of 10 Lakh rupees from his member of parliament fund. Jamyang, founder and Director of Tong-Len Charitable Trust gave an overview of Tong-Len's work and talked about his vision for the future. Anna Owen, the Director of Tong-Len UK, the partner charity responsible for funding the construction of the larger hostel for 64 school-age children and for co-ordinating the child sponsorship programme, gave the vote of thanks. As well as thanking His Holiness and Mr Shanta Kumar for their presence and kind words, Anna thanked the Dalai Lama Trust for funding the hostel for the younger chidren. She expressed her enormous appreciation to the many supporters from around the world who have so generously contributed to Tong-Len's work.

On the 18th November, a memorial to Michael Blakey was held in the new hostel. This was attended by Paul Blakey, Michael's father, and his friend Tony Bate, the Tong-Len family, including all the hostel children, Tong-Len UK trustees, Mary Hayman, a member of Michael's church in Swansea and the creator of the memorial window, previous volunteers, and representatives from the Charan communities. Paul, Jamyang, Anna, Mary, Pinki, Rinku. Nisha, and Kasmiri Lal, Pinki's father and the leader of the Charan settlements, all gave moving tributes to Michael's life and work. Anna read a message from Michael's mother and other family who were unable to be present at this time. Mary brought messages from the church and Michael's friends in Swansea. This was a most moving occasion with many of those who loved Michael in tears as they recalled their memories of this wonderful young man and his enormous contribution to Tong-Len.

Paul brought some of Michael's ashes which will be laid to rest in the especially constructed memorial stupa by Mary, Michael;s mother when she visits with other family members early next year.

The dedication ceremony concluded with Paul unveling the large memorial plaque in the main entrance to the hostel opposite the memorial window. The words on the plaque chosen by Michael's family and Jamyang were read out by Paul.

The hostel building for 26 of the younger children (primarily between the ages of 3 and 6) funded by the Dalai Lama Trust is now ready for occupation. Ten small children from Charan have already been selected and will move into the building prior to its inauguration by His Holiness the Dalai Lama on the 19th November. Once they have settled in they can be joined by a further 16 youngsters. The children will live in a family group with our housemother and assistant care staff.

Ten school-age children will join the 40 others in the larger hostel at the same time. Once sponsors have been found to cover their school and accommodation costs, this hostel will be able to welcome more children from the slum settlements of Charan who are anxiously waiting their chances of attending full-time education.

His Holiness The Dalai Lama has graciously consented to inaugurate the two new hostel buildings in November. The larger hostel building is now home to the 40 children already in the sponsorship programme. They are being joined by another 10 children in the next few weeks for whom we need sponsors for their education and living costs. Tong-Len would like to extend this number further but this is dependent upon finding more sponsors. The smaller hostel building, which is almost ready for occupation, will be able to accommodate about 25 pre-school children from the slum camps. It is hoped that the first ten of these will be in residence by the time of the inauguration. As mentioned in the February news item, Tong-Len is indebted to the Dalai Lama trust for the construction and first year running costs of the pre-school hostel. Both hostels have been constructed on the land purchased through the Michael Blakey Memorial Fund.

Monsoon rain and winds brought down the 11,000 volt power cable that supplies the government hospital. The cable fell in to a pool of water within Charan where a group of children were playing. One little boy, Gopi, the 10-year old brother of Vijay in the hostel, was killed instantly and a number of other children received burns. His mother went to his aid and was also received a shock but she fortunately has survived.

Thanks to the generosity of one of our French supporters a school bus has been purchased. This will be used to transport the children from the hostel to their school and will enable the children to have outings and field trips.

The new hostel building, built on the land purchased through the Michael Blakey Memorial Fund, which will be home to 64 children whilst attending school was completed on schedule in July. The photograph shows the children already in the sponsorship programme in front of the splendid new building at Sarah, near Dharamsala, which was designed by Ceridwen Owen and Ryan Strating of Core Collective, Tasmania, who gave their time and expertise freely. The children are enjoying the space and freedom of their new home. More children will be joining them as soon as possible. We urgently need sponsors to cover the educational and living costs of the new children. Contact mail anna@tong-len.org for further information.

20 children from the nursery tent were taken on a special picnic to Nobulingkha Centre for Tibetan Arts. They had a wonderful day with games, play and songs.

30 of the afternoon tent school children had a picnic at Tapovan temple with teaches Shankar and Meena. All the children really enjoyed their day.

To celebrate World Health Day, Tong-Len organised a special medical clinic in Charan Khad. Government doctors were in attendance and the Government provided free medicines for this event.

Tong-Len Newsletter April 2011

Thank you for your interest in and support of the work of Tong-Len, and a special thank you to everyone who helped with our big fund raising push to enable us to take the new hostel building to 3 floors. The hostel is on target for completion June/July, at which time the children from both rented hostels will move into their new purpose-built home.  We hope they will soon be joined by a new intake of 24 children. These children will require sponsors to cover their school expenses, their out-of school personal needs, and their living costs within the hostel. The total annual cost of keeping a child at school including hostel accommodation is around £700 at the present rate of exchange but partial sponsorship can be as little as the price of a cup of coffee per week (£10 monthly). There is more information about how sponsorship works on the website.  If you would like to help in this way, or want more information, please contact anna@tong-len.org .

We are very grateful to the Dalai Lama Trust for providing the funds to build a second smaller hostel on the Tong-Len land. This will provide accommodation for up to 25 of the younger children in the slum camp who need residential care. For some time we have been running a crèche in the office, staffed by ladies from the camp and overseen by our medical team, for the most undernourished of the pre-schoolers whose chances of survival were precarious. The 2nd hostel will allow this work to be extended to include night time care and the resident children will also be able to attend a local school. Construction work has begun, and we hope the building will be complete by the end of October.

Developments within the slum settlements at Charan during the last 6 months include solar lighting and the provision of more toilets. The tent schools have continued to be well attended, with an average of 75 children coming to the morning sessions and 45 to the afternoon sessions. The provision of a new blackboard and the newly painted desks has given the tent schools a brighter look.  The mobile health clinic has continued to provide a regular service to 6 slum camps. In addition to the regular general clinics, under 5s clinics and immunisation clinics, the medical team organised a specialist eye clinic and held family planning sessions.

With all good wishes and Tashi Delek

Anna and Jamyang

All the 40 hostel children continue to have fantastic results as reflected in the recent examinations. Around 27 children received percentages above 90%. All children achieved above 60 %. Many of the children were top or near the top of their respective classes. Some of the children will be receiving scholarships through the school as a result of their examination performance.

Sanitation in Charan has been greatly improved through the introduction of an additional five toilets.

Eight large solar lights, kindly donated by the White Tara organisation and Barefoot College (Rajasthan), were erected in Charan. These have been erected in the tent school and to illuminate the main passageways of the slum camp. The lights are of enormous benefit to all the residents as they facilitate safety of movement in the hours of darkness as well as allowing the Tong-Len tents to be used for evening activities.

The White Tara organisation is a small local charity led by a Taiwanese monk that teaches Tibetan art and culture to young people and raises funds to help those living in poverty.

Barefoot College is a non-government organisation that has been providing basic services and solutions to problems in Indian rural communities, with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable.

The picture shows the architect's design for the second hostel to be built on the land purchased from the Michael Blakey Memorial Fund. As mentioned previously, this building will be funded by The Dalai Lama Trust as well as the first year's running costs and will house on the first two floors 26 of the younger children from the slum camps. The top floor will be used as an office/administrative space for the charity. It is anticipated that this second hostel will be ready for occupation by October this year.

As the hostel programme has proved to be such a remarkable and valuable step in changing the lives of the children and their families in the slum camp at Charan Khad, Tong-len decided to submit a proposal to the Dalai Lama Trust for funding towards the construction of a small second hostel to house another 26 of the younger children. Tong-len is grateful that approval has been given and it is hoped that construction work on this will commence shortly. The Dalai Lama Trust has also agreed to cover the running costs of this second hostel for the first year of operation.

Hostel children learned about Dharamshala and its important temples during the Christmas Holiday. The children were divided into four groups with each group visiting a different temple. After their trip the children wrote up their experiences in a report. To read their report click here.

The hostel children are always keen to explore and learn about different cultural experiences. The children enjoy learning about different traditions. On the 24th of December the hostel children celebrated Christmas in the hostel.  Several guests attended and the hostel children participated in party activities such as cooking competitions. The food was delicious and as they had been participating in cooking lessons on their Sunday holidays they were able to show off their skills. The children were also very grateful to receive presents from sponsors and supporters of Tong-Len.

Christmas celebrations in the Charan education tents were also very enjoyable and gifts were distributed to the students from the kind donations of supporters and the hostel children.

See the video of the celebrations here.

A team of 38 Indian people from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) R&D, Gurgaon, visited Charan on 15 November to help Tong-Len in running a general clinic and health awareness seminars. In the GlaxoSmithKline team were doctors and health workers including those who specialised in the care of mothers and children. GSK is a world-leading pharmaceuticals company dating back to 1700 and with a presence in every corner of the world. About 250 people from Charan attended the day's programme. The community was divided into three groups who attended a number of seminars in turn - awareness of health and hygiene, mother and baby care, daily diet, immunization and domestic violence. At the end of the day the company donated boxes of Horlicks, biscuits and some towels and soap for use by the tent school children. Everyone in the group was impressed by Tong-len’s projects and some of them also expressed an interest in the child sponsorship programme.

The team stayed at a local hotel, Club Mahindra, during the time of their visit. Club Mahindra generously provided a meal for the children in the tuition tents which the children enjoyed a great deal. The hotel plans to donate meals in the future. Tong-Len is delighted that this important visit from a major multinational company has helped to generate local interest in its work.

Tong-Len Newsletter October 2010

Thank you for your interest in and support for the work of Tong-Len.

In the last 6 months there have been some exciting developments particularly within the slum settlements at Charan.  We have two shower blocks, one for men and one for women, each with four shower taps.  The water for the showers is heated by a solar panel.  There are now four Indian teachers employed in the tuition tents and two Charan ladies are employed in the hygiene project.  All the children are given a shower before attending classes. The tent schools have continued to be well attended, with an average of 70 children coming to the morning sessions and 50 to the afternoon sessions. The morning sessions in the primary tent provide elementary education in Hindi, English and Numeracy, whilst in the nursery tent the very young children learn through educational play. In the afternoon sessions the children follow a structured primary school curriculum, with the children divided into 3 classes according to ability.

The mobile health clinic has provided a regular service to 6 slum camps in the Kangra valley with more than 5,000 patients having been treated. In addition to the general clinics, there are specialist clinics for the under-5s, pre-natal and post-natal clinics and vaccination clinics. Family planning advice is regularly given in one-to-one contacts with the families. A wide range of health awareness events have been held.

One disappointment is that of the 20 children who started government school in April, only 5 have continued to attend regularly. The reasons for this include families moving to other areas in search of work, ill health, books and uniform being lost/destroyed, lack of encouragement and support from the family, and pressure to return to begging and rubbish collection to assist family income. It is evident that the majority of the Charan children need the support of a caring hostel environment if they are to succeed in school.

The hostel children have done really well yet again, with 23 of them being allowed to jump a year because of their excellent examination results.

The new hostel building is progressing well with all the seismic safety measures in place.  It is expected that the 2 storey building will be ready for occupation by July 2011. We still hope it will be possible to commit to a 3rd floor, but for this we have to raise another £40,000. We need to give the go ahead by early next year if it is to be part of the present construction process. If we have to delay then the cost of the 3rd floor will be considerably more, and also it will be more difficult to continue building when the hostel is occupied.  If anyone can help with any fund raising activities over the next 2-3 months it would be greatly appreciated. Tong-len subscribes to Just Giving (http://www.justgiving.com/tong-len) , which you can use to create your own page for any fundraising event, big or small – it all helps!

With all good wishes and Tashi Delek

Anna and Jamyang

The 40 hostel children accompanied by the hostel staff, volunteers and Gareth and Anna Owen from Tong-Len UK celebrated Gandhi Day with a picnic outing to Kangra.

Rinku and Nisha spoke in both English and Hindu about the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi and Jamyang gave a lesson about the teachings of Gandhi and the importance of non violent communication which includes non only physical non violence but the absence of all bad feeling towards others.

The children enjoyed competitions and team sports, proudly wearing their new Tong-Len sports strips.

Baby Sangeeta, who has been cared for by the office and health team staff for more than six months, has made excellent progree. At 19 months she weighed only 3 kg. Now, thanks to the loving care of the Tong-Len staff and a nutricious diet supplemented by vitamens, she weighs 5.5 kg, is bright and alert, and is beginning to walk and communicate. It is hoped that she will soon be able to be returned to the care of her mother. Sangeeta is one of five infants who were identified in the under 5's clinics as being at extreme risk. All five have been part of a special creche within the Tong-Len office. Besides the care given by the professional team, one of the mothers from the Charan slum has been employed to help in the creche.

For more information about Tong-Len's health work see the video.

The hostel children were granted a private audience with His Holiness The 17th Gyalwang Karmapa on the 15th September. He is the head of the Kagyu lineage in Tibetan Buddhism. The children were able to talk to His Holiness about their lives and His Holiness expressed his desire to help Tong-Len in its work.

The regular attenders at the morning sessions of the tent school were given a special treat. The tent school staff arranged a visit to Gopalpur zoo, about 30 kilometres from Dharamsala. There was great excitement as the children had their first every experience of seeing animals such as the Himalayan black bear, leopards, asiatic lions, barking deer, hog deer, red foxes, sambhar and angora rabbits.

The morning sessions of the tent schools are intended primarily for the under 5s although older children are able to join in the activities when they are in the camp. Classes take place in two tents, one for the very young children who have opportunities for educational play and one for the slightly older ones who follow a pre-school curriculum designed to develop the skills they will need when they start more formal learning.

The afternoon sessions, which begin when children return to the camp after whatever activities they have been engaged in during the day, follow the standard primary school curriculum. The children are divided into three classes according to ability.

See the tent school video here.

The hostel children celebrated Independence Day on the 15th August. Mrs Chouhan, past Principal of Dayanand Model High School and the person who was instrumental in accepting the children from Charan Khad into full time education at the school in 2005, gave a party for the children in the hostels. The children organised quizes, dances, dramas and songs and held a poem competition between the boys and the girls.

The hostel children were invited to perform for His Holiness the Dalai Lama at his 75th birthday celebrations. This really was a momentous occasion for Tong-Len. His Holiness expressed his sincere and ongoing support for Tonk-Len. He was especially supportive of the continued achievement of the children under Tong-Len’s education programmes. See the video of the children's performance here.

This year approximately 300 people attended the Tong-Len Thanks Day. Representatives of the office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, local dignitaries and other supporters joined members of the Charan community in the celebrations. Everyone enjoyed the performances of the children from the hostels and from the tent schools. Films were also shown of Tong-Len's projects and the achievements made during the year. You can see a video of the dance performances on the Tibet TV website at http://www.tibetonline.tv/videos/169/tibetonlinetv-news-july-2-2010 .

Mary Hayman, a graduate of the Welsh School of Architectural Glass and a member of Michael's church in Swansea, has designed and produced this beautiful stained glass memorial window.This window will have pride of place in the main entrance to the new hostel building. Mary travelled to Dharamsala to visit Tong-Len's projects and find inspiration for the window's design. She worked both in the tent schools and with the hostel children. The hand is taken from the children's drawings and is reaching out to help, demonstrating compassion in action. At the centre of the hand is the Buddhist Dharma Wheel, which is also the Tong-Len logo. For the month of June the window has been on display in the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea.

The hygiene project has taken another step forward through the provision of a shower. Cristina from the Energee Association has been working with Tong-Len. With her help and financial support from the Energee Association we have been able to create a shower with two cubicles, one for men and one for women, and also a space for laundry. Solar energy is used to heat the water and to provide light.

The office staff have been looking after a baby from Charan. Sangeeta is about 19 months but weights only 3 Kg. The health team have been following this baby since she was five months old. The mother of this baby gave birth to another baby three weeks ago. Sangeeta has needed intensive care and nutritional supplements. She is now making some progress.

Promotion exams were held in Dayanand Model High School to select children whose educational prgress was such that they could jump a year. All the 11 kindergarden children were promoted to class 2. Mamta Devi, Rohit, Rano and Ajay were promoted from class 1 to class 3. Poonam, Nisha Devi, Kishan, Suraj and Naresh were promoted from class 3 to class 5, and Ranjeeta, Renu and Vishal were promoted from class 5 to class 7. Congratulations to all!

The new developments of clean water, nutrition and emphasis on hygiene has enabled 20 children to be accepted into a local government school. The teachers in Tong-Len's tent schools provide extra support for these children when they return to the camp. If this pilot project is successful it is hoped that more children will have the opportunity to benefit from full time education.

We are delighted that Edinburgh Rotary Breakfast Club decided to support Tong-Len as its overseas charity this year. Brigid Whoriskey, one of the Tong-Len UK trustees, gave a presentation at the fundraising breakfast organised by the club on the 28th April. This raised £1500 for Tong-Len. This money is being used to support the work in Charan slum camp and has provided the funding for the new teacher in the tent school.

Congratulations to Renu and Ranjeeta! As well as coming 1st and 2nd in their class, they also came 2nd and 3rd in the Dharamsala section of the State Board examinations in which 8,000 children participated.

On the 13th April, their school annual function day, 23 of the hostel children were awarded prizes for coming in the top positions in their end of year examinations.

On the 10th of April all the hostel children hiked up Mount Triund, the mountain that overlooks Dharamsala. They were accompanied by two sponsors from France, Magali and Florence, as well as hostel staff. The children were excited about camping overnight especially as this was the first time that the younger children had been allowed to do this. Magali, a professional yoga teacher, had given yoga lessons to the children during the previous week. A further yoga lesson was given by Magali on the top of the mountain. The children considered this a wonderful way to celebrate their achievement.

From the outset, Tong-Len has had a number of French supporters. Largely due to the efforts of Annie Benard (annie@tong-len.org) this number has increased considerably over the last few months. Annie took on the task of translating the web site into French and this is now operational. The language can be selected on the home page. Annie has also registered Tong-Len as a charity in France, registration number W061001498.

Jamyang and Navita took 15 of the more senior hostel children on an educational tour of Delhi and Agra. The children had a fantastic time and were amazed by the sights they saw. They have written their own report on their experiences which can be viewed here.

The hostel senior children created a puppet theatre with help from Tong-Len volunteers, Sophie, Will and Roger. The children prepared stories based on those explored in the Theatre of the Oppressed (see the October 2009 news item by clicking here) with the emphasis this time on making people aware of issues surrounding domestic violence. On the 25th March the children gave a performance of their puppet theatre show in Charan camp when more than 200 people participated. The children plan to use the tool of puppet theatre for future awareness campaigns to the Charan community.

For a long time Tong-Len has been concerned about the complete lack of sanitation in the Charan settlement. Until now requests to allow us to install even basic composting toilets have been refused. Permission has now been given to erect two toilets to be used by the children attending the tent schools. If this proves successful we hope it may be possible to provide further facilities. 

Due to a shortage of space it has been necessary to relocate the nursery tent. We have been allowed to use space on the far side of the primary tent. The nursery tent was in a bad state of repair and the opportunity was taken during the move to replace it. We are grateful for the support of the Institute of Village Studies towards this and also to the help we were given by individual students.

The first Tong-Len hostel opened on 9th February 2005. To celebrate the 5th anniversary the children prepared speeches for the staff and supporters. Some children were quite emotional in their recounts of the changes they have experienced. They decided it was also a day to celebrate Jamyang's birthday. As is common in Tibetan culture, Jamyang has no knowledge of the actual date of his birth.

If you want to how the children's lives have been changed, see the short video they prepared here.

26th January 1950 is one of the most important days in Indian history as it was on this day the constitution of India came into force and India became a truly sovereign state. In this day India became a totally republican unit. The country finally realized the dream of Mahatma Gandhi and the numerous freedom fighters who, fought for and sacrificed their lives for the Independence of their country. So, the 26th of January was decreed a national holiday and has been recognized and celebrated as the Republic Day of India, ever since.

Republic Day is a National Holiday. The older hostel children chose to celebrate their day off school by hiking up Triund, the mountain overlooking Dharamsala, from where there are magnificent views of the Dhauladhar range of the Himalayas.

John and Sharan Brown set off on their trip on Boxing Day from the UK. They will be travelling through France and Corsica and then on to Italy. After this they plan to travel the length of Africa and then on to the USA. Their route then takes them through Central America, Ecuador, Peru and Chile, finally ending up in Ushaia, Argentina - the southernmost city in the world. Their trip will take in 23 countries in four continents. We all wish John and Sharan a safe and wonderful trip. Tong-Len is hugely grateful for the money they will be raising for Tong-Len from this challenging enterprise. Help them raise their target for Tong-Len by visiting their JustGiving web page at http://www.justgiving.com/halftheworldbikeride . See the route plan on their facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/photo.php?pid=2774&id=100000131282003 .