Tibetan Children's Village

"The greatest gift the Dalai Lama has given the Tibetan people is the education of the children" Tensing Sangpo, the Director of Education for the Tibetan Children's Village Schools told us today. Today there are eight different school sites across India serving more than 16,000 refugee children, but when the first refugees arrived in 1959, there were no programs to educate the children. The first refugees were put to work building the mountain roads in the lower Himalayan mountains. The children came along on the work crews and were parked by the side of the road while the refugees worked 15 hour days. When the young Dalai Lama visited these work sites, he realized that the future of his people was in jeopardy if the children could not be educated, so he enlisted his elder sister to open a nursery for the young children that eventually grew into this cluster of schools that blends the teaching of traditional Tibetan culture (language, religion, crafts) with education for the modern world (English, mathematics, civics, Hindi, technology).

Today many Tibetan children in Tibet do not have access to any education at all, or if they do, it is an education that is taught in Chinese and focuses on Chinese culture and values. Tibetans are also restricted in their ability to practice their religion, especially any connection to the Dalai Lama. So Tibetans who want their children to learn about Tibetan values and culture will walk their children over the Himalayan mountain range, eluding Chinese patrols, to bring them to the Tibetan Children's Village (TCV) so they can be educated. Parents leave very young children and return to Tibet, knowing they may never see their children again.

TCV has programs for infants through the 12th grade, and if a student wants to go on to college, they also seek to find the support for them. TCV is organized in 'homes' with 25-35 children per home with a 'mother.' The older children help with the chores, cooking and care of the younger children and they stay in the same home from the initial placement through 10th grade. In grade 11-12 they move out into a 'hostel' to prepare for increasing independence.

The curriculum in grades Pre-K is Montessori based with a Tibetan twist in the materials. For example, these matching blocks use images of people in traditional Tibetan dress, all the teachers wear traditional dress and the images on the walls are of Tibetan landscapes and symbols. The grade 1-8 curriculum emphasizes learning Tibetan language and culture as well as the other basic skills. Once the children are in high school, the Indian government has a prescribed curriculum.

The impact of the Dalai Lama's vision is palpable. The contrast between the children in these schools and the children we saw in Sarnath, or even the children in the early photographs of the Tibetan refugees, is stark. These children are healthy, well-nourished and thriving. They have hope for lives that move beyond begging or hard manual labor and they have pride in their culture, even though they live without a country.