As water is big problem at Jhamtse Gatsal,  the project of slow sand filtration has been started in August ’09 under the guidance of Jerry Z. All the children of fifth standard are also involved in the project. They are divided into three teams – Morning Team, Noon Team, and Evening Team – so that they can observe the changes of the water tank daily. Till now we have found no big changes. All children and staff are very excited about it. We hope it will be successful and that there will be no more problems with drinking safe water.

A group of teachers from Kharteng, the nearest village, did an amazing job of promoting this meeting, enthusiastically promising that 30 participants would show up from many of the outlying villages.  The day dawned with sheeting rain, making the roads treacherous.  Jhamtse Gatsal sent two cars out to collect the teachers and bring them here, each car having to make two, arduous trips.  These transport difficulties made for a late start, but surprisingly all of the promised 30 teachers did appear.

Lunch was served, nametags and signup sheets distributed and the formal meeting began with a discussion and presentation by venerable Lobsang Phuntsok.  He explained of the mission and vision of Jhamtse Gatsal, how the school had succeeded thus far without government assistance, and the progress of the children in only three years of operation.  Then ideas were suggested as to how Jhamtse Gatsal might help the village schools succeed by providing assistance, training and other support. One suggestion for this audience was a focus on the importance of early childhood.  Poverty and hunger in this region results in young children having to stay in the village caring for yet younger siblings while the parents are out in the fields or engaged in other work.  These young caretaker children are left supervision, often without adequate food for all of the daylight hours, fending for themselves and their charges.  This often means that school is out of the question.  Ven. Lobsang’s suggestion was that providing nursery facilities in each village would free the elder siblings of their duties to care for younger ones, enabling them to attend schools.  What was needed was space to do it, a responsible person to provide daycare and the means to enable such a program to start and sustain itself.

A significant theme of the ensuing discussion was that the teachers are under-trained and under-resourced.  To this problem, Lobsang responded that this was the situation they were in, but that it was futile to think that the government was going to solve this problem, and the teachers were going to have to take the initiative and improve their results without additional outside official support, at least in the intermediate term.

After sufficient discussion, Lobsang asked the assembled teachers if they would be willing to join in an organization, hosted by Jhamtse Gatsal, to provide simple, efficient solutions to the problems they faced.  The response was unanimous, all signed up, and a next meeting, in September, was suggested.

He’s also working on curriculum for a Youth Program in the summer of 2010, which will include both local Monpa youth and visiting participants from America.  It will be centered on the cultivation of compassion and its active implementation. The at-Gatsal portion of the program would be a beginning, emphasizing continued activism and fundraising for a specific project after returning home (for the American youth), and then local implementation of that project for the Monpa participants. It would be both exceptional for the village itself, and also an incredible chance to involve the older kids at Gatsal, model compassion in action, and show them really that one can go out and make a difference.

So that’s how I’ve come to see how what I thought of as Jhamtse Gatsal is really only one part of what Jhamtse Gatsal is and does. It is growing in reputation: people from all over are becoming aware of the community, and it is becoming a strong center, leader, and model within the district. It’s a spark of change, whose ripples are going to spread far beyond the edges of the school community itself, and it’s an incredible and heartwarming thing to witness.

You can find more solar installation photos in the Pictures Gallery!  Or click here.