Winter 2013 project update!

Winter 2013 Pureland Project Update

Information Gathered By Meg Ferrigno 12/9/13-12/24/13

GARGON SCHOOL

General Overview:

Gargon School has been held in the lower level of the hospital since the original school building was ruined by flooding in the summer of 2011. The classroom temperatures are below zero as they prefer not to light the wood burning stoves due to the amount of smoke that they emit. The radiators of the hospital never worked (This issue will be communicated with hospital project manager Steve Drago & Tenzin Dhargye). The teachers moved into the upper room in the hospital and use it as both their office and bedroom. Garchen Rinpoche gave funds for a new school to be built, the building is in place of where the teacher’s rooms were and blocks the khora path for the monastery It is poorly planned and the teachers say the classrooms will need to be split in half. The builders destroyed the kitchen built in 2006 and the school cooks now use an earthen stove built outside and an old classroom from the original school for food storage. It seems that the monastery did not listen well to the requests of the teachers or the community, which clearly asked for space for the students to board from tajuk village. I will be asking Rinpoche if the original school which was rebuilt by the villagers can be used as a bunks for children who live far from gargon.

There are 61 students 1st-6th grade with  5 private, 3 government teachers. Lunch program. Classes are now 5 days a week one week and 6 days a week every other week. This gives children a chance to stay with families that may stay in the nomad place and also gives teachers a chance to go home.

Gargon school has a new government headmaster. Palden Gonpo from Nangchen replaced Pema Yeshe as of August 2013. While Palden is young, he has served as a teacher at gargon for the last year and has a bachelors degree from Lanzho University. With the new President’s campaign against corruption most government officials have changed. Pema Yeshe was thought to be a good headmaster, but he has now been transferred to be a teacher in the middle school in Nangchen. Palden is supposed to be sent to training, yet he has not yet been told when this will be.

During the visit I held a community meeting in which about fifty parents attended. During the meeting I introduced Palden as the government headmaster, as many parents did not know, and Thobten (Yargon monk who is the son of Dhondrup Phurbu) as the monastery headmaster. Palden asked parents to please send their children to school regularly as there is a high rate of absenteeism. He also requested that they have these community meetings once a month. Thobten asked the community if they indeed wanted him to be in charge of the school (I had asked Garchen Rinpoche to place him as the headmaster after numerous complaints from villagers that the school needs a strong headmaster). The community unanimously agreed that they wanted Thobten to watch over the school and said that they want to be more involved with the students education, but complained that the teachers are often absent.

We introduced the offering of the Winter Tibetan Language Intensive, which I hired Gado and tashi Dekyis daughter to teach in. Gado asked me to create a schedule and they will follow it.

8:30am students arrive and make fires in the classrooms (the original school will be used and the community will offer the firewood)

9-12 class, memorization of spelling and grammar

12-2:30 lunch break- students will eat at home

2:30-4:30 writing practice

4:30-5pm prayers

1st,2nd & 3rd grade students will study basic reading and writing and will use copy books.

4th, 5th & 6th grade students will study grammar and spelling.

Over 50 people signed up for Tibetan classes. After I announced the winter intensive one younger man announced that he would like to attend, apparently this opened the possibility for adults to attend, and many signed themselves up for the classes while they were enrolling their children. This is very exciting. In 2007 the government had offered evening adult language classes which I attended and found very useful. After the literacy rate sufficiently increased the government suspended these classes. It will be necessary to hire a third teacher to give lessons to adults this winter. Palden was happy that we are applying the salary for the teachers and promptly bought texts for the classes. I also recommended that they reestablish the library which was flooded and have each student fully read a Tibetan book this winter and deliver a book report during the last week. When I introduced the idea of Friday fun days where the students compete for prizes in spelling bees and language games the teachers became excited and requested training in educational games. This may be a project for our summer fair trade learning exchange.

The village leader is now ChoNga. He is happy to work together to improve the school. Although the monastery will finish the new school building this spring he is still requesting that the government build a school here so that the school will be one of the only official village primary schools in the district.

I was very happy that Palden raised the concerns about pollution in the community. I had spoken with the teachers about digging a new “landfill” closer to the village as the original one by the lake is not being used anymore and the village is back to throwing trash down the side of the mountain. The villagers agreed to help keep the village clean- as the students still do collect trash each week, but the teachers feel it is futile when the parents keep throwing trash everywhere. I would like to present some posters and a video with Garchen Rinpoche by my return this summer.

Employees: (* pureland project staff)

*Thobten, Monk: monastery headmaster (new position, salary not discussed, as previously this was unpaid, I gave him my used iphone as  a gift for taking on this responsibility)

Palden Gonpo, BA: government headmaster. From nangchen, 1 year at gargon. Teaches 6th grade math & Chinese.

*Penzom: has been teaching at gargon for 15 years. Teaches 2nd &5th grade math. She has had Liver problems for the past 5 years and had taken a month off this fall to go to the hospital in Xining. She is still sick.

*Gado: From Gargon, he has been teaching for 2 years. He also had liver illness this fall and went to be treated in Chengdu, he is now better. Teaches 4th & 6th grade Tibetan.

*Yipal: Took the place of Tsewang Trigyal. Graduated from gargon school (my old student) Teaches 2nd & 3rd grade Tibetan.

*Tashi Nyima: Son of Dr. Dhundrup Phurbu, taught a Tajuk and gyalsum, transferred to gargon when Tajuk closed. Teaches 5th grade Chinese & Math.

*Londrup Palmo: graduated from gargon school (my old student) 1 year teaching. Teaches 1st & 2nd grade Math.

Dekyi Zangmo- has been teaching at Gargon for 15 years as a government teacher. This month her child (not yet a year old) fell ill and she has been absent as she needed to take the baby to the hospital in Xining. Teaches 1st grade Chinese.

Lodron- the midwife and doctors intern is acting as a temporary government teacher, she was paid by Pema Yeshe.

Wangdrak- temporary government teacher.

*Dodrak- driver. Employed for 6 years.

*Chodron- School cook. Employed for 1 year.

*Dekyi- School cook. Employed for 2 years.

*Gega’s mom- Greenhouse caretaker. Employed for 5 years.

Aja-Teacher’s cook.

Requests:

-Increase salaries

-adult education program

-educational game training

Offerings:

The teachers are still searching for a good tara tsa tsa form and will make 100 tsatsas by summer. Andrups mom will also be making 50-60 tsa tsas.

TAJUK SCHOOL:

Overview:

While Tajuk school is to be supported by Lama Dondrup since 2012, I have still been in contact with Rinchen Tsering (now headmaster) as a friend and supporter. The school was already closed for winter holiday since they agreed with the  sponsoring organization that it was too cold to hold class. They will re-open in February after Tibetan New Year, Losar.

Tibet Aid offered tajuk school $3,325 which I delivered to Rinchen requesting that this go towards repairing the broken classrooms from the 2010 earthquake.

He reported 19 kindergarten students and 2 teachers. All of the other Tajuk school age children were transferred to nangchen Primary school or they became monks. We also delivered gloves socks and masks from pureland project funds.

Requests:

Continued support (was not specified)

Offerings:

Rinchen has more 9eyes bracelets if needed.

Gyalsum School:

Overview:

While Lama Tsering in Germany was supposed to take over support for Gyalsum school in 2012 he has not yet been able to offer funds for teachers salaries or school food.

Achung is the school’s headmaster and Lama Tsering’s brother and he continues to request that the pureland project take care of the operating costs of the school, while Garchen Rinpoche tells me that we no longer need to look after the school and Lama Tsering requested earlier this year for the information about Gyalsum school to be removed from the pureland project website. I have not gained the contact information for Lama Tsering but need to speak to him directly about these issues. As I took down the information about Gyalsum from the website, but continue to support the school.

Gargon teachers reported that gyalsum school was being closed and now they only have 25 students, while all others have been taken to the government school in Kyichu. Upon arrival the Gyalsum teachers reported that there are only 25 students out of 62 attending because of illness. The direct translation of champa is “cold” but the symptoms of the sickness include fever, diarrhea, dizziness, vomiting, and coughing. They said that 2 babies and one cook at the government school have already died from this illness in kyichu district. They now supply all attending students with Tibetan medicine each evening with dinner. When probed further regarding the name of the illness in both Tibetan and Chinese, the teachers stuck with the original diagnosis that they all had “champa” (colds). While I am extremely concerned about this illness I also hold a slight suspicion, and will most likely only understand what is true during the next visit.

I was able to give Achung 16,000RB for the 4 months of food that I didn’t have the cash for over the summer visit. He reminded me that Tenzin Dhargye is still owed 6,000RMB for the school fence.

Gyalsum also relieved a new headmaster this year, Kunzang Norbu is very sweet and quite young. He appreciates all private support for gyalsum. The government is supplementing the private teachers salaries by paying 500-600RMB each month to them. The government also supplies money so that the students can have dinner.

Employees:

Achung- Headmaster-Looks after the school but lives in Nangchen, lama Kunga Tserings relative, perhaps he receives salary through that organization, he is not paid through the Pureland Project, but he manages the food money and helps me deliver the teachers salary annually

*Oyo Kyime- started the school teaches Tibetan, I give her the teachers salary to distribute and treat her as the headmaster, although this is a difficult position for her as the people of the area still regard women as very low.

*Dawa Dhondrup-from Wahaka, Oyo Kyimes husband, served for 3 years. teaches Tibetan

*Palden Trinley- from Tajuk, teaches Chinese

*Tenzin- teaches Chinese

* Marde- takes care of the hydroelectric project for the school

* Nyide-takes care of the greenhouse

*Dodrak –cook #1

*Tashi Zimche- cook #2 also cooks for teachers (Dawa Dhondrups sister)

Kunzang Norbu- teaches Chinese- government headmaster since August.

Palmo Rinchen- from Amdo, Jentsa- teaches Tibetan

Requests:

-salary increase

-buid new buildings- including boarding house so that they can have a kindergarten too.

-water project (1.2 km from spring to the school, .7 km from upper spring to Gyalsum village) backhoe costs 400RMB/hour- perhaps 10 hours from town. Two separate tanks and two channels.

Tibetan Traditional Medicine Internship

Overview:

This program started with just a conversation, and by the time I left Gargon this summer they started interning without knowing if they would be paid! Impressed with their initiative I believe this is an extremely promising program. The women began studying with the two doctors in July, traveling as far as the Tibetan Autonomous Region, they took turns traveling to collect medicine and treating patients in town.

I gave the women their years worth of stipend (6,000RMB each) along with 10,000RMB to both Doctors. Since one woman decided to take a job at the government hospital rather than the internship, I was able to use the extra 6,000RMB to repay the doctors for the travel expenses and offer the remaining funds to offer for future expenses, such as the foundational ingredient for making Tibetan pills.

Employees:

Dr. karma Choying- from tajuk, placed at the hospital through steve drago project, now lives in his house rather than at the hospital.

Dr. Dhundrup Phurbu-from gargon, son of the famous dr. treats patients from his home

Lodron-now also acting as a substitute teacher

Rinchen Tsomo-

Yudron- nun

Supplies and Travel- they spent 1,400rmmb this summer on travel expenses, this was repaid to karma choying and 4,600 is being kept by Dr. Dhundrup Phurbu for buying ingredients for making medicines and for future travel expenses.

Requests:

-10,000RMB for additional medicine to combine with the herbs that they were able to gather in order to be able to make pills.

-Additional herb drying space

Ideas:

Dr. Dhondrup Phurbu and I talked about the possibility of having students create an app that would help identify the herbs and their uses. While there is only sometimes cellular signal and no internet, the use of technology in this way may bring these skills into another social level.