Lena Arstarm, a sponsor from Sweden came all the way from Malmo in Sweden to meet the adopted person here in Dharamsala.

Ani Lhamo is a recent arrival from Tibet and as she has no relatives here in India life started becoming very difficult for her. It became all the more difficult as she prefers spending most of her time on prayers and meditation. With no source of income, she lived entirely on whatever little she gets in the form of donations from people who makes offerings to these hermits in retreats. But sometimes days went with no offerings forthcoming.

As living under such hardship even disturbs her normal prayer and meditation sessions, she approached Tibet Charity for assistance.

We in turn were very happy to find Ms Lena Arstarm who immediately took up her case as she has always wanted to adopt a lady in need. She felt that people tend to take up children’s case more promptly thereby ignoring the plights of grownups that face hardships in life.

When she met Ani Lhamo she was overwhelmed with joy to see how much difference she has been able to make in someone’s life with some financial support.

We thank Lena Arstarm profusely for supporting Ani Lhamo.

16th December 2009.

It always is a cause of great worry to us when people come to us with requests for some financial support to undergo some operations or treatments that could mean life or death for them. To turn them away and to hear later about the death of the same person due to shortage of few hundred rupees shatters our hearts to thousand pieces. Sometimes we feel guilty for not being able to help thereby cutting short someone’s precious life.

We felt that it is a great pity if someone loses one’s life simply because he/she did not have few more rupees.

With this in mind we approached Elizabeth Zimmermann of Save Tibet Austria with stories of incidences gone by. She found no difficulty in understanding the gravity of the need and straightaway promised all necessary help to get this Emergency Medical Fund started.

True to her promise, she succeeded in raising some money for the cause which was in turn sent to us. Just few days after we have received the fund we received request for support from a person who needed permanent pacemaker implantation at a hospital in Chandigarh.

Thanks to Elisabeth Zimmermann in particular and all the other supporters from Save Tibet Austria we were able to provide the person with some

money to get the pacemaker implanted. He is now leading a normal and healthy life – thanks to their kind support.

I can happily write here that few thousand rupees have given a new life to a human being. With continued support and encouragement, we hope to save more lives and bring smiles to many more families.

Updated on 19th October 2009.

Water has always been a big problem with the 2700 people living in 418 households at a Tibetan Settlement in a place called Miao in Arunachal Pradesh a small state in Northeast part of India. The people in the settlement used to walk a long distance to fetch water and with the younger population going out of the settlement to fetch their livelihood, it was left for the elder people to do this strenuous task.

Though the Tibetan Government in Exile has set provided them with pump sets and has constructed structured tanks, much of the drinking water problem remained as these pump sets could be used only for one hour daily due to the expenses involved in using the electricity.

So to help the people living in the furthest of the camps from the main village tank, Tibet Charity provided them with funds to construct a separate tank close to a bore-well so that they could store water in the tank and use them as and when they want.

In the peak seasons when there is excess water in this tank, the excess water is used for their Organic Demonstration Farm.

Now the people living in that particular no longer needs to walk a long distance to fetch water nor do they need to be dependant upon the village water supply which provides water only for one hour a day.

This has also helped the settlement as a whole as there is now one camp less relying upon the main water source because of which the settlement is able to provide more water to other camps.

The Settlement Staff and the general public have expressed their deep appreciation of the kind help they received from Tibet Charity.

We extend our heartiest thanks to Tibet Charity Denmark for their kind help.

- 25th March 2009

The settlement has a few crèche where very young children are sent while the parents are busy attending to the field or other community activities.

But the facilities in the crèches were very poor.

The floors of these crèches were concrete and the children had to sleep on these bare floors in the afternoons. Now they have been able to lay wooden planks on the floors and some mattresses were also laid on these floors. This made them much more comfortable to sit during the class hours or sleep in the afternoon.

Then the kitchen still used firewood to cook food for these children which was a hard task for the cooks. They also had very poor utensils and insufficient number of plates and spoons. They have now been provided with LPG gas stoves. They were also provided with new utensils which have made the task of the cooks much easier. The children were provided with new

plates and spoons.

The teachers used a polished part of the wall as blackboards which becomes very difficult to write on after a few use. But now thanks to the white boards, teaching has become much more enjoyable for the teachers. Writings too have become clearer for the children.

Then the class books and other items were kept on the floor which got eaten up by the rats. But now thanks to the steel cupboards, the things could be safely kept in them.

The settlement officer who is also the in-charge of these crèches writes in his completion report, “project has greatly benefited the children and this has ultimately resulted in the increase in the children’s attendance to these crèches. All these have been possible because of the kind support of Tibet Charity in general and Mrs. Pia Lakha in particular who works endlessly in aid of the poor and needy Tibetans living in India and Tibet”.