Tibetan Refugee Children´s Project

HISTORY AND THE BON TRADITION

John Margetson came across the Bon Children´s Home (BCH) at the Bon monastery, Dolanji, Northern India when he was travelling in the country in 2002 with his friend Michele Claiborne a trustee of  ´Love a Child.´

After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, His Holiness The Dalai Lama went into exile in India with many thousands of Tibetans both Buddhist and Bonpo.

The main Bon monastery in Tibet was destroyed by the Chinese in 1962 and the then head of the Bon tradition and many monks fled to India, where they suffered terrible hardship mainly working on road and construction sites in the heat of Southern India where many died.

The Tibetan followers of the Bon tradition can be traced back for many millennium and their religious history equally pre dates Buddhism by hundreds of years although the principles of the two traditions are very similar.

In 1967 land was acquired from the Indian Government at Dolanji in Himachal Pradesh. In 1969 a small temple and basic accommodation for monks was erected. The process of development of the monastery has continued since that date and in 1990 due to the number of orphaned refugee children that arrived at the monastery, His Holiness The 33rd sMen ri Trizin Rinpoche (the spiritual head of the Bon tradition) decided to start a Children´s home.

By 2002 the home consisted of around 150 children housed in mud walled dormitories, which during the monsoon were imminently liable to collapse. Most children were sharing beds, many had no shoes or socks in the winter. There were no toys, footballs or general play equipment. Food was rice followed by rice.

However a couple of years before John arrived His Holiness had asked Lama Nyima Dakpa to take over the running and development of the home and remarkable progress has since been made. Money was raised to improve conditions, a young Tibetan manager Kelsang Dhondup was appointed and new brick built dormitories were started with the help of the Austrian charity SOS.
The nearby school was also upgraded by the Indian government.

The home now consists of nearly 300 children and more are arriving all the time, which is stretching the facilities to the limit and constantly straining the finances.

After the establishment of The Bon Children's Home help was forthcoming from the Indian government with the building of a new school, where children were taught up to eight grade.The school was recently upgraded to 10th Grade enabling the children to study to the age of 16 at which point they can continue their studies at a local private high school paid for by the monastery.

Environment

We are pleased to report that recently due to generous support from around the world most of the old mud walled dormitories have been replaced by new buildings. However due to the ever expanding number of children these dormitories are far from sufficient.     Therefore this is only a fraction of the development that is needed to support the ever increasing number of children.  Lama Nyima, his fellow monks and helpers have achieved miracles with financial support from around the world but conditions are still extremely basic.

New kitchens and play areas are desperately needed, as well as all forms of equipment, which we in the west would consider essential in a children’s home.  There are no toys, footballs or general play equipment, few towels, spare clothes, shoes or socks. 

Each child desperately needs a sponsor to support their basic needs and to help contribute towards their education.

Further education is an additional expense that can be very costly for students from a refugee background and therefore we have recently agreed to set up a Further education sponsorship fund to support children going on to higher education. Currently we have a girl studying Traditional Tibetan herbal medicine at the University of Veranasi, a boy at art college in Delhi and two nurses training in Bangalore.