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Pema Ts'al Sakya Monastic Institute is a non-profit educational Tibetan Buddhist monastery. It is located in Pokhara, Nepal, where it was built in 2002 and currently has around 100 students ranging from the ages of 3-27, at both school and college levels. Pema Ts'al provides a free, fully sanctioned education and care for children of the most destitute families.
The majority of the monks come from Tibetan settlements throughout Nepal and India, particularly Mustang. This small Buddhist kingdom is located in north-west Nepal, near Tibet’s border. Until 1992, Mustang had remained one of the most isolated and inaccessible areas of the world. As a result, it is one of the last places where culturally Tibetan social and spiritual life has remained unchanged for centuries. Mustang is one of the poorest regions of Nepal. Education, healthcare and sanitation are of a low standard. Whether from Mustang or other regions, children are brought to Pema Ts’al with the guarantee of better and free education, food and healthcare.
The monastery depends on the support of sponsors and donors to maintain its facilities and continue providing for its students. It also relies on volunteers to teach some classes and help with anything else that needs doing, such as repair/maintenance work, the clinic, etc. Without any of this, the monastery would not be able to continue.
THE PROJECT:
I first visited Pema Ts’al last summer (2013) to voluntarily teach English. I went back a second time this past winter. During my time there, I discovered that there were many other things that volunteers could help with; one of those being bedrooms.
Some of the bedrooms at the monastery have fallen into disuse due to a lack of maintenance. The monks who were previously using the bedrooms have been moved into other rooms and/or are now sharing with more children. The abandoned bedrooms are in need of cleaning, painting, repair/maintenance work on lights and windows and will benefit from new beds, drawers and hooks for clothes, as there were previously few places where the monks could store them, especially if they were wet or dirty. While the monastery itself had planned to do this, they require additional funds and some spare hands to do so.
The aim of this fundraiser is to gather enough money so that a friend and I can start and complete this project when we return this spring, at the end of March. With these funds, we will clean and paint the bedrooms, removing built-up mould/mildew, and repair any lights and windows that need it. Where possible, we will also repair any drawers, desk and beds, and buy new ones if they are too damaged or there are not enough. The intention is, in each freshly cleaned and painted bedroom, to have 1 or 2 beds and a chest of drawers for clothes. If there is still funding available, we would like to also provide a bin, desk and table for each room, for their trash, studying and storing their books and study materials.
Any excess funds we raise will be used on more nutritional food, particularly fruit, medicine and any other projects that might require financial support.
A HUGE thank you in advance for any donations you are able to make! I will update this page with other photos, informations and videos to keep everyone in the loop.
FINISHED!
Due to a family emergency, this is extremely delayed and I’m really sorry for taking so long! All the details and information on what we did, how much we raised, what was spent on what, and on all those involved is included below. All photos, with details of the project, will be on my Facebook, along with a selection here on this fundraising page. We managed to clean, paint and fix up 10 bedrooms. We raised $2004, spent $1428, and so have $576 left for another project. Thank you SO SO much to all those who were involved! Words cannot express our appreciation. We could only name 58 individuals, but there were so many more that helped. Please take a look through the photos and the list of what was done to see what you all achieved. Thanks to all of you, 20 boys were very excited to get to sleep in their newly refurbished bedrooms!
What was purchased/worked on:
Light bulbs
Light box (switches, sockets, circuiting)
Electrician (all of the above was done for all 10 rooms and also done on two of the bathrooms with extra donations that came later)
5 new windows
cream and blue paint
rollers, brushes and cleaning supplies
20 new mattresses
putty
carpet
bedding (pillow, mattress cover, pillow case)
hooks
locks
screws
12 door mats
Funds and prices:
We originally raised 120,500 rupees in total. However, in the last week, we raised another 43,343 rupees (163,728 total) and so were able to do extra (10 more mattresses, 2 more windows, 12 door mats and the lighting in the bathrooms.
Of this, 7,300NPR (about $76) were left and we raised another $500 two days before leaving the monastery, so we weren’t able to spend it. This means we have $576 left for another project to work on when we go back later in the year. Please keep your eyes out for another fundraising page and events once we’ve decided with the monastery what to put these funds toward and what to work on next!
(All cleaning supplies and paint brushes, hooks, light bulbs and the putty were supplied by us and other volunteers.)
What we did:
All beds and remaining furniture and mattresses were removed.
Beds were checked for what could and couldn’t be used.
All bedrooms were thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed down, twice, both with various disinfectants and then bleach.
Walls, ceiling, floor, doors and windows; everything.
Old hooks for curtains and unused screws/nails were removed.
All holes were puttied over and the electrical sockets were cemented around.
Walls were painted in cream; ceiling in blue, keeping to the original colors of the rooms.
Broken windows were replaced.
All electrical circuiting, sockets and switches were fixed/replaced and new light bulbs installed.
2 hooks and 1 lock were added onto each door in each bedroom.
New, green carpets were fitted in each room.
The bed frames that were still fine to use were thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed down. The rest were discarded and replaced with beds from upstairs if there were 3 monks to a room. (With the newly refurbished bedrooms, it means there are only 2 monks to a room now )
The cleaned beds were moved into the rooms, 2 to a room.
New mattresses with new mattress covers, pillows and pillow cases were put in.
Donors and sponsors list:
Adriana Padilla
Amber Freeman
Balaji Sundaram
Bernard Lee
Bridging Humanity Inc. (Tina Cornely)
Daniel Drury
Emily Yao
Judy Ramirez
Kathryn Bohan
Lawrence Dykeman
Leela Fiorino
Lenore McDonald Searle
Loren Kantor
Marion Auclair
Mark Allen
Michaela Story
New Era Collectibles
Project Nepal (Edmund Kellerman)
Ramon Hoffman
Richard White
Shunsuke Ide
Stephanie Simonet
Stephen Rowe
Theron Miles
Sponsors who donated outside the site:
Angie Rodriguez
Ayumi Endo
Beverly Ward
Carolyn Cole
David Hallén
Deanna Evenrud
Jessica Damerst
Jiwon Lim
Lisa Forrest
Setsuko Tamegai
Shervelle Kennelly
Tania Guidolin
Tatum Hodgkinson
Yoshiko Toyoda
Volunteers:
Anja Johansen
David Hallén
Deanna Evenrud and kids
Grace Dobell
Jiwon Lim
Shervelle Kennelly
Thomas Konnerth
Harrison Berger
Monks:
Dhakpa Gyatso
Kunga Choeze
Kunga Dhakpa
Khentse Dhondup
Kunga Losel
Kunga Tsepal
Leckshey Choedhar
Ngawang Phuntsok
Kunga Tsering
LARGE number of primary monks
Tashi Wangyal and Gonpo Gurung AND of course the electrician and all other workers that helped and the Pema Ts’al cleaners and other staff members.
Again, a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone involved!!!!
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