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School children and staff of the Rolwaling Sangag Choling Monastery School.
After receiving an appeal (below) from the Rolwaling Sangag Choling Monastery School, the Social Services Fund raised $US39,200 to assist with a desperately needed hostel for young Nepali school children. After raising this money to help, Nepal suffered the 7.9 magnitude earthquake and the school also endured considerable damage. The grant offered to the school will now, not only need to assist with the hostel, but also to help with repairs needed elsewhere on the property.
The school put together a beautiful video about the school, its history, aims, and needs.
Report from Rolwaling Sangag Choling Monastery School
In the remote mountainous areas of Nepal, such as Rolwaling, many children are sadly deprived of a crucial and empowering education. Ngawang Lapsam Rinpoche was inspired to address this problem, establishing a free school with a special philosophy for children in the remote Dolakha District to attend. The school aims to provide a quality education, covering general academic and life skills through a traditional Buddhist education.
Starting with six children and one teacher in 2010, the school now successfully educates 15 children from poor families across the Dolakha District of Nepal at the primary school level and provides free boarding, medical attention, clothing and other needs to its students.
Children living as far away as Kathmandu (three days walk and 10 hour bus journey) where schools are numerous, live away from home in order to receive this special education which follows a curriculum approved by the government enables them to pursue further studies if they wish.
The school is currently managing its operation using limited Nepalese Government support which covers only staff wages, donations from the villagers, and some other support from sponsors.
However, these funds only cover the children’s food, clothing and medical care, leaving the school and its community with huge challenges while trying to provide an education to these children who are attempting to break the cycle of poverty.
The building for the Rolwaling Sangag Choling Monastery School is need of a hostel and repair due to the earthquake.
Initial funding for building work only covered the school building itself. By adding the classrooms, an office and a very small (and cramped kitchen/dining hall) there is currently nowhere for the children to sleep as all but one live away from home to attend the school.
Arrangements for them to sleep with local families and then in a local house sadly didn’t work out for a number of reasons, so the children now need to sleep on classroom floor and kitchen floors if they wish to continue to receive a quality education.
These children and their families know this is the best education they can receive in the district so the children endure these difficult circumstances to keep their dreams of a better future for themselves and their families alive.
Besides the obvious discomfort caused by needing to sleep on floors while living in such a harsh remote Himalayan environment, it also poses other problems for the school. Girls are currently unable to attend if they don’t live in the nearest village (which no primary school age girls currently do) as there is no room for them to have their own private space in which to sleep, essential at their age and when living away from home.
In addition to the school being unable to teach girls, using two classrooms as bedrooms with mats on the floors for sleeping means they cannot be used for teaching. In turn, this limits the number of students which can be accepted by the school despite a current waiting list of over 20 children from across the district wanting to attend.
The school aims to provide a quality education, covering general academic and life skills through a traditional Buddhist education.
The inability to accept new students also poses the risk of being unable to meet government targets of a new intake of students each year. If this target isn’t met, staff funding could be stopped resulting in closure of the school.
A new hostel and kitchen/dining hall will solve many of these problems providing the students with a warmer, and therefore more comfortable and safer place to sleep while freeing up classroom space to enable the school to accept new students. This can mean a quality education for girls in the district while accepting new students from their waiting list each year helping to ensure government the continuation of government funding, securing the future of the school.
You can support the Rolwaling Sangag Choling Monastery School directly:http://www.rolwalingmonastery.org/support-us
The Social Services Fund contributes, as funds allow, to many charitable and beneficial activities, particularly in India, Nepal, Tibet and Mongolia. You can support this work or learn more about previous grants and support offered.