The

ROKPA TIMES

We need your help – please make a donation now! Thank you! Post Office Account No. 80-19029-5 or see back cover for bank details Volume 28/May 2008 www.rokpa.org

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Dear ROKPA Friends As you cannot help but know, Tibet currently makes headlines around the world. Which leaves you, as an individual, wondering if anything you do can really make a difference. The fact is, ANYONE can make a difference! ROKPA is managing more than 120 projects in Tibet – continuing our efforts, undaunted by the discouraging news we see daily. We will continue our work – now especially! All our projects are in fact progressing well: For the first time ever, our clinic in Yushu, Tibet, now offers year-round medical care. Eight more street children have been accepted into our Children’s Home in Kathmandu in Nepal. Last not least, there have been some interesting developments in Switzerland! As of March, ROKPA has a new Office Manager. Ms Schneider brings many years of experience, excellent qualifications and a healthy dose of motivation to her new position and already feels at home here at ROKPA. Years ago, Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche counseled us: “Do not start anything unless you mean to finish it.” ROKPA Child Tatse is living proof that we have taken this advice to heart: She came to us 15 years ago, a young orphaned nomad girl. Today, she is a practicing medical doctor. But there are thousands more children depending on our help to ensure their survival and their future. They live in our orphanages and visit school. Without ROKPA, the best these children could hope for would be a life tending sheep. Most would beg for their lives, and many would end as work slaves or child prostitutes. We must not allow that! Please make a donation now to help these children – their only chance for a better future. YOUR help can make the difference! And to allow us to achieve at least twice what we previously did in Tibet, we would like to enlist your assistance: Help us find new friends for ROKPA. Please pass on the attached flyer to a friend, and feel free to request more flyers for distribution from us. Thank you for your help and commitment! Yours sincerely,

Contents Call for aid from Tibet 3

From foundling to head physician 4 - 5

A Swiss dentist in Yushu 5

New arrivals at the ROKPA Children’s

Home 6

New faces in ROKPA’s Management 7

The “Rokpa Times” is a quarterly publication for sponsors of ROKPA Switzerland. The annual subscription fee of CHF 1.00 is deducted directly from your donation.

ROKPA would like to thank Ringier Print Adligenswil for printing this circular free of charge. costs of this circular.

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Call for aid from Tibet These children need your help! Whenever anything happens, it is the children who suffer. Our purpose is not a political one – we are here to help. To help where help is needed! ROKPA has been active in Tibet for 18 years. We now manage more than 120 local projects. We have already succeeded in rescuing thousands of children from the streets and offering them the chance of a school education. Thousands more are still waiting for our help! Give children the gift of a future! Make a donation NOW! The current situation in Tibet Sometimes, we are asked: “Taking in children from the streets, educating and helping them, does that not merely address the symptoms? Would it not be better to find and address the cause instead?” In the words of ROKPA Vice-President Lea Wyler: “No! Today’s symptoms are tomorrow’s causes. Offering children an education today means they will tomorrow contribute to the health and welfare of others.” We will continue our work – ESPECIALLY NOW!

How to make a donation:

- Use the attached payment slip, or pay by bank transfer with reference: “No. 8000 – Help for Tibet“ to either our post office account No. 80-19029-5 or to our account with Clariden Leu AG, CH-8022 Zurich (Clearing number: 5065, SWIFT: LEUZCHZZ80A, Account: 0065-0455090-11-1).

- Become a project sponsor. Your monthly bank transfers will allow us to help wherever help is needed.

Thank you!

Tatse as she looks today (above left), Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche hands Tatse a plastic-wrapped bundle of money – prompting tears of emotion (above right)

From foundling to head physician

Tatse is now a young lady, but her features still recall the small child who came to ROKPA many years ago, standing frightened and lonely outside our door. She was very brave, refusing to cry. A public official had brought her to us, since the small nomad girl had lost her parents. Tatse is part of ROKPA now – for us, she has become like a daughter. She is also a part of our history. She has spent thirteen years in our care, living in the Yushu orphanage and attending school, from the first grade in primary school up until completion of her studies in Tibetan medicine. Tatse is a strong-willed girl. Singleminded-ness, commitment and dedicated study helped her on her way from foundling to qualified doctor. A life without tears We never saw Tatse cry, not even during her last year at school. At that time, she was diagnosed with a life-threatening heart disease. Had she still lived in the Tibetan highlands, Tatse would not have survived. A heart operation was urgently needed to save her. ROKPA collected donations to fund the operation and sent the young girl to the nearest hospital in the Chinese city of Xining. Following the operation, Tatse was bedridden for six months. A strange family, living near the hospital, offered a small, dark room for her to stay in during her recuperation. When we visited, we were shocked to see Tatse’s state: Alone and emaciated, she was lying in bed studying her textbooks – not even knowing whether she would live to take her exams!

But Tatse never complained, she never cried. Doctor at the Yushu clinic Tatse's recovery seemed nothing short of miraculous. She was able to complete her education and return to the orphanage in Yushu. Partly because this was the only home she knew, but also because she wished to help with the new arrivals. Last summer, Italian doctors volunteered to help ROKPA in Yushu. Working from the small clinic opposite the orphanage, they offered medical help to the children and the local population. As a recently qualified Tibetan doctor, Tatse was able to assist them, learning much while at the same time translating for the patients. The group of Italian doctors had nothing but praise for Tatse: “Her medical knowledge is excellent. She is eager to learn, and she learns fast. But above all, her empathy and sensitivity in dealing with patients are exemplary." They asked ROKPA Vice-President Lea Wyler to appoint Tatse as head of the clinic.

During the winter months, this entails responsibility for medical care of the 250 children living at the orphanage, as well as of the villagers. In summer, Tatse can continue her work with the foreign doctors. Tears for a whole life And so we did. In July 2007, Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche appointed Tatse to her new task and handed her the funds for managing the clinic: 5,000 Swiss Francs, that is just under 5,000 US-Dollar, for medicine, electricity and an entire year’s salary! Tatse had never seen such an amount of money before. Trembling, she took it and hid it in her clothes. Then she went outside, sat down on a bench and started to cry – long and heartfelt and hardly able to stop. She was crying tears of gratitude, of apprehension, of humility – for her success, for the confidence we had in her, for her past and her future, for her whole life. Tears that helped cleanse all her past fears and troubles away. Tatse is now a successful doctor, practicing in Yushu.

Medical help in Tibet Doctors in Tibet are few and far between – in rural areas and villages in particular, there is practically no medical care available. The principle is a very simple one: A healthy person will live, a sick person will die. There is no in between. People in Tibet wish to live. Please help them! ONLY 5,000 Swiss Francs will keep the ROKPA clinic in Yushu operating for one year, funding: • The doctor’s salary • The patients’ medication and • The ongoing clinic costs Please make your donations with reference “Tibet – Medical Aid No. 7600” to either our post office account No. 80-19029-5 or to our account with Clariden Leu AG, CH-8022 Zurich (Clearing number: 5065, SWIFT: LEUZCHZZ80A, Account: 0065-0455090-11-1), or use the attached payment slip. Your donation will help fund medical aid in Tibet. Thank you! 4

A word of farewell for Anita

Anita with Sarita © Bea Schmutz All things change in the flow of life. Here at ROKPA, this is something we have felt, particularly strongly this year:

happy events are followed by sad although fortunately they often change in the other direction, too. For six years Anita has been caring for our children at the ROKPA home. Of course, she was much more than a carer – to the little ones, she was a mother and a big sister rolled into one. As a child herself, Anita spent much of her time with street children and orphans, as her father was head of the SOS children’s village in Nepal. She took on responsibility very quickly at ROKPA. Even during the worst strikes and riots, she was not one to stay at home, making her way to us on foot through the chaos. ROKPA has also benefited from Anita’s negotiating skills. She always seemed able to strike

a lower price and so help the children’s home to save money: school fees were waived for many ROKPA children; gas deliveries for heating and the kitchen came with a discount, and if a child fell ill, sometimes the best doctor would agree to treat him or her at a special low price. We all appreciated Anita tremendously – especially for her work, of course, but also for her great sense of humour and her friendliness. Anita has left us this year to spend more time bringing up her own son. She intends to maintain her links to ROKPA, however, and will still be on hand to advise and visit our children. Many thanks, Anita, for the magnificent job you have done for ROKPA. We wish you good fortune and every success in the future.

A warm welcome to Saroj and Rajeni So who will be looking after our ROKPA children now? Saroj and Rajeni. Both worked previously for ten years with another charity as teachers. He was also the director of an integrated school. Since 1 April, both have been living at the ROKPA children’s home together with their four-year old daughter. That is marvellous for us, as it means the children are protected and looked

after and day and night. Both give the children extra private lessons and help them with their schoolwork. Saroj is now running the administration, too, and spends all day at the children’s home. Rajeni continues to work during the day at her old job but is at the home for the remaining time to care for the children. A warm welcome to you both!

Saroj and Rajeni at the ROKPA children’s home in Nepal

Volunteers urgently needed!

Can you donate some of your time and skills to help ROKPA? We are looking for:

IT: user support for our PCs Graphic Design: brochure redesign Event Manager: for ROKPA Gala, etc. Fundraising: to launch and follow up appeals, etc. Journalism: articles for our public relations work Statistics: data capture and processing Administration: donor support and thank you letters Please contact ROKPA’S General Manager Frau Schneider: 044 262 68 88 or e-mail us at: info@rokpa.ch

ROKPA 5

We are growing! In January a total of eight boys and girls left their lives on the street behind them to come and stay at the ROKPA children’s home in Kathmandu. There are now 56 children in our care. A future for the children – a big challenge for us … We will look after these children as they grow up. We will be responsible for them and pay for their food and education. To enable us to meet this challenge, we need LONG-TERM financial resources. ROKPA’s vice-president has been drawing up plans to make this possible. We’ll tell you more in the next edition. Sarita: Once she has had a wash, she looks like a normal child again Today, we’d like to present our youngest member of the ROKPA family. Little Sarita is just three years old but her short life has been filled with sadness. Now at last she can be happy with us.

Little Sarita is completely filthy and reeks of alcohol. Thanks goodness, her spirit remains unbroken – she wants to live, to get away from the street and her often brutal parents. We decide to take her into the ROKPA children’s home. There is nothing we can do for her two siblings, who urgently need treatment for alcohol dependency. We send them to an institution that has experience in dealing with young drug addicts.

This couple have been living on the streets for over a year – they are Sarita’s parents. Both are alcoholics; they fight constantly. They hardly give a thought for their three children. To keep them quiet and still their pangs of hunger, the parents give the little children alcohol and force them to sniff glue.

New arrivals at the ROKPA children’s home

Amazing! Can this be the same child? After a shower and with lots of affection from her new ROKPA family, this former street child is barely recognisable. Here she is playing happily with her new purple teddy bear.

Can you make a donation to help give little Sarita and her siblings a future? Please make a donation NOW to: “ROKPA children’s home no. 5500” Postal account 80-19029-5 using the attached payment form or by direct debit via our bank Clariden Leu.

We need around 14,000 Swiss francs every month to run the ROKPA children’s home and pay for food and education for the 56 ROKPA children.

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A change in ROKPA’s management team

Erika Roos

After eights years as general manager at ROKPA Switzerland, Erika Roos has decided to move on. We are very sorry to lose her. She infected everyone with her positive approach and was always touched personally by the suffering of those who ROKPA tries to help. Erika motivated and led the ROKPA Team in Zürich, especially the many volunteers, in commendable fashion. Her dedication and commitment were exemplary. Thanks to her professional qualifications,

the decisive manner in which she tackled each day’s new challenges and her encouraging presence, she acted as a model to us all. Alongside Lea Wyler, it was Erika whom donors saw as the face of ROKPA. She made countless new contacts, organised gala evenings and ensured that ROKPA’s accounts were accurate and transparent. Erika, many thanks for your tremendous work on behalf of ROKPA and best wishes for the future.

A few words from ROKPA’s new general manager

and a few years as a financial analyst in the US, I decided to return to Switzerland in 1998, where I picked up my career here in Zürich in the corporate finance division of a major consultancy. I then took two years out in order to complete an MBA in the United States. This led to my first experience in the field of international cooperation as project leader for a small NGO working in Tuzla, Bosnia, where my work involved advising a women’s organisation on financial, marketing and administrative matters. It was an experience that left a great mark on me and pointed me in a new career direction. As a result, I gave up my work as project

leader with a Swiss telecoms company to take up a post as administrator from 2006-2007 for the International Red Cross Committee in Indonesia and Georgia. Following my return to Switzerland for personal reasons, it became clear to me that my future career lay in the field of humanitarian work. I came to ROKPA as I believe in the mission of organisation! As general manager, I aim to put my knowledge and experience of business to good use and to set to work each day with dedication and enthusiasm. Of course, the success of our work depends on your help. Please continue to support us – as a donor or a volunteer. We need you!

Pia Schneider Dear ROKPA friends, I was born in Switzerland but spent part of my childhood in the United States. After completing my degree in International Relations

Emil to appear with a surprise programme at the gala dinner: The ROKPA Gala Dinner will be held on 26 November 2008 at the Lakeside in Zürich. This year, too, you can expect some extra-special surprises …! ROKPA ambassadors Sandra Studer and Andreas Vollenweider will be there together with Emil to provide some great entertainment. Why not mark the date in your diary right now?

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We need your help! Bank details: Clariden Leu AG • Bahnhofstrasse 32 • 8022 Zürich Account: ROKPA, no. 0065-0455090-11-1 or Postal account: ROKPA 80-19029-5 ROKPA Switzerland • Böcklinstrasse 27 • 8032 Zürich Telephone 044 262 68 88 • Fax 044 262 68 89 e-mail: info@rokpa.ch • www.rokpa.org