On Saturday, July 16, 2011, Tibet Charity celebrated the graduation ceremony of its second group of 9 home nurses. Dr. Tseten Dorjee lak of Delek Hospital and Mr. Sonam Topgyal lak, former Kalon Tripa of the Tibetan Administration in Exile and board member of Tibet Charity, were the two special guests.The Director of Tibet Charity, Mr. Tsering Thundup lak, gave the opening speech. He said that the ‘home nursing’ section was started to help Tibetan patients who had come from Tibet. In his speech, he told the graduating home nurses to perform their jobs professionally and with integrity, and not to do anything to damage the good name of Tibet Charity. He told them that their job is not that of a doctors’ and that they should not attempt to treat patients on their own accord without a doctor. He finally said that he hopes to meet and see the home nurse girls in the future from time to time.

Mr. Sonam Topgyal la, in his speech, said that helping others is one of the main points in Tibetan Buddhism, and he said that the home nurses will be doing a very important job in their communities.He praised the job nurses do, and said that their jobs are not only very beneficial to the community and also to themselves. He said that it is very important to be a good person and have a good heart.

Dr. Tseten Dorjee lak, in his speech, praised Tibet Charity for the wonderful work that it has done in the past ten years, and said that it should have a celebration to mark its 10th Anniversary this year. He said that when he talks to Tibetan people, they greatly appreciate the work Tibet Charity does. He stressed the importance of thinking creatively to solve problems in the Tibetan community, and said that a lack of creative thinking is one of the biggest problems in our community. He told the home nurses that they will be doing an important job in their communities, and said that they will be spending more time with patients than even the doctors, and so they have a great opportunity to help patients very directly. He told the nurses that the most important thing that they can say to their patients is to ask them what their biggest health problem is since most patients suffer from many health issues.

Penpa Dolma, one of the graduating home nurses who lives in Dharamsala, also gave a speech. In her brief speech, she thanked Tibet Charity for the opportunity given to the new home nurses, and she thanked Delek Hospital for the practical knowledge they gained there. Ms. Namsel la, the person-in-charge of Tibet Charity’s Health Section, thanked the two special guests for coming to Tibet Charity,

and wished the graduating home nurses well in their work. Each graduating home nurse girl was then offered a ‘khata’ and a small gift containing books and other items. After the formal ceremony, lunch was served. After lunch, the graduation ceremony came to an end.

On the next day, the new nurses went to see Mr. Tsewang Yeshi lak, the President of TCV schools, and Mr. Ngodup Dorjee lak, the Secretary of the Department of Home of the Central Tibetan Administration. They advised the girls to perform their duties well, and spoke some words of encouragement for the benefit of the new nurses. Some of the new nurses will be working under TCV school, and others will be working under the Department of Home. Tibet Charity will provide the salaries of the nurses. The Home Nursing program came into being after Dr. Gunver Juul of Tibet Charity, Denmark, observed that a lot of elderly Tibetan patients were in need of medical help in Dharamsala. Since the start of the program, our first batch of 4 home nurses have done a tremendous job helping elderly patients around Dharamsala. We wish the 9 new nurses well in all their future endeavours.

Tibet Charity’s medical assistance and care to ‘the Man in the Box’ was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal.

Our medical assistance to ‘the Man in the Box’ by our ‘home nurses’ and nurses, in the later stages of his life, was mentioned in an article in the Wall Street Journal under the title: Dharamsala’s ‘Man in the Box’ dies.

The deteriorating condition of ‘the Man in the Box’ was brought to the notice of our Health Section in the winter of 2010 when his bedwetting was causing painful sores. Since then, he was receiving treatment for his wounds from our ‘home nurses’ and nurses. He was later taken to the Tibetan Delek Hospital when his condition deteriorated. But with not much signs of improvement and also due to his reluctance to continue staying in the hospital, he was later discharged from there.

Few days after he was discharged from the hospital, he breathed his last inside the ‘box.’

We at Tibet Charity pray for his early rebirth. We thank all those who have extended all kinds of help to him making our task much easier.



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The home nurses and the new trainees are receiving special training on clinical body care massage from renowned Japanese aroma therapist, Ms Izumi Egawa.


The training started from 25th March 2011 and will go on for around another 40 days. The training is for a period of two hours every day in the afternoons.

The home nurses and the students will be taught various massage techniques to cure various body pains and ailments. They will also learn how to rid people of stresses and fatigues.

This training will be especially useful for our home nurses and the students as they will be mostly looking after people of old ages with all kind of body pains and stiffness.

We wish to express our heartfelt thanks to Ms Izumi Egawa and her team for kindly taking out the time to visit us and to spend time in imparting this valuable massage technique to our home nurses and the students.


As per the goal of Ms Izumi Egawa, we hope that the girls who receive these trainings will be able to provide the benefit of the knowledge to the people under their care. We also hope that these girls will be able to spread this knowledge to many more people so that the benefit can be maximized.