• Thanks ...

Team Reports
• Clarence Deyoung
• Laura Harper
• Milton van der Veen

Spiti Valley Videos

• The Distribution
• The Dalai Lama visits Kaza
• Old Beds, New Beds
• Untrucking Mattresses
• Streets & Roads of India

Helping Hands

Clarence Deyoung — Halifax, NS

From Spiti Valley Photo Album

“A person without an education is like a bird without wings.”

This was a quote posted on the school wall in the Munsel-Ling School in Rangrik, Spiti Valley, Northern India, where Sleeping Children Around the World [SCAW] distributed 380 beds. The quote expresses the strong belief of the school founder and director, Lama Tashi Namgyal.

Although there is a public, government-run school in the small community of Rangrik, in the early 1990's only three out of the hundred students passed the final exam since a proper curriculum was not being followed and teachers often did not show up.

With concern for the children's future, Lama Tashi jumped into action and in 1996 opened the Munsel-Ling School. Since then he has worked with agencies around the world to the point where from June to September each year — which is the only time of year when the road to Spiti Valley is open — the school is a beehive of activity.

This year's activities included students from the Global Health Initiative Program from the University of British Columbia who are there from June to August working on things like:

• Water.
• Building greenhouses and showing school staff how to grow vegetables.
• Working on a solar system, and
• Doing medical pre-screening of all the students in the school.

Dr. Bob and three other people were there from Australia with a fully equipped dental clinic, checking the children's teeth and doing whatever had to be done.

From Spiti Valley Photo Album

Filip and Veronica from Individuell Människohjälp, a Swedish aid organization, were teaching English there for three months.

Forty-five labourers from east India were building:

• A new student residence,
• Three more greenhouses,
• A road from the student residences to the school, and
• A basketball court.

Medical Check For Children [MCC] from Holland was to arrive on July 17th to:

• Follow up on any medical problems the UBC students found during their pre-screening of the children.
• Visit other schools in the area and do the same.

Delia from South Africa was there teaching English for a month.

An organization called MUNZIL from New Delhi, had been there before us to do workshops with children on things like, music, crafts, and theatre.

A volunteer arrived just as we were leaving to organize and set up the school's library.

Then of course our SCAW travelling team, The Spiti Valley Three, was there to deliver the new beds to the children staying and sleeping at the school.

From Spiti Valley Photo Album

Lama Tashi, is a very humble man with only one thing in mind, education for the children of the Spiti Valley and he is making progress. We could not have pulled this off without him. There are twenty-two teachers at the school teaching children from kindergarden to grade ten. We were pleasantly surprised at the amount of English the children could understand.

This is just another example of how much can be accomplished when a group of like-minded people all work for the same cause: children and their future.

Thank you to Margaret and Murray and thank you to the SCAW estate donor, for making this a special year for 380 children who now have a very comfortable place to sleep. As Murray always said: “There is nothing more peaceful then a sleeping child.”