Tag Archives: Tibet

From the Field: Assembled to Celebrate

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This weekly post shines a light on a handful of stories from Heifer.org’s “From the Field”From the Field section.

Heifer International project participants work hard every day to Pass on the Gift® (POG) they once received and transition from recipient to donor. Sharing their success often brings participants joy and a commendable cause to celebrate.

In March and April 2013, Heifer Cambodia self-help groups (SHG) organized seven POG ceremonies. More than 820 families shared gifts of livestock, vegetables, tree seeds and rice with new project families. During one ceremony, POG recipient Chea Sambo responded with gratitude to her donor family, “Words cannot express how happy I am to receive the gifts. I promise to take good care of the animal and improve my garden so that I can pass on to other needy families, and become a donor like your family.Thanks much to your family and to Heifer.”

April 2013

Heifer Cambodia participants Pass on the Gift® of chickens during an April 2013 ceremony. Photo by Toeng Rothy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Heifer Cambodia.

Armenian YES! Youth Clubs gathered to celebrate the past year’s activities during the 10th Youth Parliament General Assembly, April 26-27, 2013. Thirty clubs shared about their projects, which were mostly focused on civic participation and responsibility, and the success of their small businesses. Vardouhi Torosyan, a 13-year-old jewelry-making business owner, said she was able to pass on her seed money of $100 to another club member so he could also start a business.

Heifer China project participants joyfully celebrate after a POG with a Tibetan Guozhuang (bonfire) dance. Photo by Droma Sangmo, Tibet Regional Project Manager, Heifer China

Heifer China participants prepare to celebrate after a POG ceremony with a Tibetan Guozhuang (bonfire) dance. Photo by Droma Sangmo, Tibet Regional Project Manager, Heifer China

Beneath snowy mountain peaks, farmers in Tibet applauded each other during a wintry April POG. Participants from Dan Nu, Xue Ba and Zhi Ba villages passed on a monetary fund worth about $37,342 to Xu Ba village. Three candidates were distinguished among their community for modeling exceptional behavior and a traditional Tibetan Guozhuang (bonfire) dance ended the celebration.

Learn how you can help Pass on the Gift®

A Hopeful Spring in Tibet

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The cold winter had finally passed. The belated spring put a hopeful smile on the herdsman’s face, because for herdsmen, the spring is the key season of the year. It often snows in the highland areas in spring, which probably causes livestock death and serious economic loss. On the other hand, spring is also the hopeful season here, because it’s the breeding season for yaks and sheep, which means spring is the best season to increase this family’s income.

Quzong's baby yaks

Quzong is busying delivering babies for livestock as usual this year. All eight sheep babies and four yak babies are alive now. If the babies grow up soundly, Quzong’s income will increase RMB 3800 this year, which is fantastic for her, and she has not had such a big increase in income for the last few years. The breeding season is the busiest, most tiring and difficult season for herdsmen. Quzong has to get up at 4 am every morning and walk through mountains and valleys with her yaks and sheep. If some yak gives birth, she will go to help it quickly and give it simple medical care as well. Besides, Quzong needs to take care of the babies at night, for they mean all to her.

 

Quzong's yaks

This year’s harvest could help Quzong achieve a wish, which is to purchase a set of famous Tibetan cushions. As we know (since she has purchased a set of Tibetan furniture last year) Quzong cannot afford cushions any more. This has worried her for a long time, because according to the Zhegu custom, if you have the best Tibetan furniture, you have to use the best cushions to match or people will laugh at you. We hope Quzong could purchase the best cushions by the end of this year in order to better her life.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Our team in China has chosen one family in each region where we work and is sharing quarterly updates as these families work to better their lives with Heifer’s help.

The New Year Brings Joy in Tibet

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For Quzong, it is a long and difficult process to get help from Heifer, for there are a lot of needy families who need Heifer’s help in Zhegu Village. As part of the first batch of recipients, Quzong is lucky to reap the best opportunity to improve her family’s life.

Last December, Quzong received money to purchase two yaks from a neighboring village; the yaks are expected to be pregnant and deliver this year. It was on the 26th of the twelfth lunar month of the Tibetan calendar when we visited Quzong’s home, and all the villagers were busy cleaning the yard or preparing food for the festival. This made Zhegu Village more lively than usual.

Quzong’s two children were also at home for the winter vacation. She bought a set of cedar furniture, which is a symbol of a happy life, from Zedang Town several days ago. “Although I had wanted to buy it for a long time, I could not spend all income of last year to do that. I was not sure we can get money in the coming year, for our animal quality was poor so that some may die in spring or die off when suffered from snowstorm,” Quzong said. “But I feel confident this year because the yaks we bought are good and I believe they could deliver the babies in the coming year. Therefore, I purchased this furniture as the greatest gift of this New Year!”

According to Tibetan custom, people treat each other in the village and visit house to house during the New Year period; hence people will feel proud if they bought something new this year. Because of this new set of furniture, Quzong’s family is filled with joy and anticipation to this New Year of Tibetan the calendar.

It is really a special New Year for Quzong’s family. We hope she can be better off in the future and wish them a happy New Year.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. You can read the first post about Quzong and her family here. 

A Turning Point in Tibet

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Qunzong at her home in Tibet

by Heifer China

As we know, Tibetans live at high altitudes. Wangdu dorjie is one of them. He is 40 years old, the father of a family and he took part in the Heifer project this year.

One day before we visited him, it snowed there so that we could see the snow-capped mountains as well as their roof covered by snow. The sky in Tibet is deep blue and the sunshine is warm and bright. Only Wangdu dorjie and his wife, Qunzong — wearing a Tibetan traditional Quba — were home because both of their children went to school.

Wangdu is the typical herdsman in the Tibetan area who does not grow any crops. His family will get two good-quality yaks from Heifer through the Tsomei Community Integrated Project. Although they already have 42 yaks and some sheep and goats, they still need Heifer’s help. Their yaks are not good-quality ones, which means they are smaller and thinner. Besides, they just feed them but do not know how to sell them and manage them, which results in poverty.

Since they became members of this self-help group, they began participating in such group activities as cutting grass and helping the village vet to distribute animal medicines.  Qunzong is very shy to talk with us. When we asked her some questions, she just said, my husband will know about it.

Now, there is a problem that worries Wangdu — his younger daughter, Ordrun Droma (age 12), doesn’t like school very much, and she wants to drop out to help the family raise sheep. Surely her parents want her to continue her schooling, but Wangdu said they would let her make her own decision. One of their dreams is that their kids could continue their education and find a job after graduation. The other is that they want to have more good-quality animals in the future.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Initially, this series will focus on our programs in Asia/South Pacific, where our colleagues have chosen one family in each region in the countries where we work and will bring us quarterly updates.

Qunzong works at a loom while her husband, Wangdu dorjie, watches

Qunzong works with yarn at her home in Tibet

Heifer Crew at Top of the World

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Photographer Geoff Oliver Bugbee recorded this view of Mount Everest and the Himalayas on his iPhone on a recent flight from Nepal to China during CEO Pierre Ferrari’s visit of projects in both countries. I took the still shot below.

The flight landed in Lhasa, Tibet China, before continuing on to the delegation’s final destination of Chengdu, China. Heifer has several projects in Tibet, some which offer yaks to help families improve their nutrition and income. For more information, go to www.heifer.org.
Check back here for a look at Heifer project visits in China in the coming days.

China’s Earthquake: Today and Two Years Ago

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Heifer International has learned that no projects or participant families were injured or affected by the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck a far western Tibetan area of China on Wednesday.

Chen Taiyong, Heifer International China country program director, reported that Heifer had worked on a rehabilitation project in the area in the late 1990s after the region was struck by a devastating blizzard, but that there are currently no active projects, partners or staff in the area.

Heifer team members in China and Little Rock continue to monitor reports of the earthquake in the event that Heifer could provide sustainable rehabilitation later on.
We are currently working to rebuild the livelihoods of farmers in the Sichuan region of China, an area devistated by a tremendous earthquake that killed thousands nearly two years ago. It has always been Heifer’s mission to provide rehabilitation for the long term, not simply short term relief. Our work rebuilding lives in Sichuan is not yet complete and we have only a little more than $670,000 to go before we reach the completion of our our 2 for 1 matching grant to finish the project.
We will continue to post updated information about Heifer’s response to today’s earthquake as we learn more.