The foundation supports needy Tibetans outside of Tibet, whether in India or Nepal. To survive in the community, a good education and nutrition of the children is essential, but also housing conditions that allow children to grow up well. Furthermore, an environment is needed that enables these children to find a job in the agglomeration later on.

Since 1959, about 150,000 Tibetans have come from Tibet. About 100,000 currently live in India in various settlements. SH the Dalai Lama has been living in Dharamsala for more than 60 years, where another 6,000 Tibetans now live and the exile government is also domiciled. But also in South India there are large settlements and Tibetan monasteries, as well as further settlements and monasteries in North India.

In 2016, I (PhD nutritionist and President of the Foundation Board) found that the children were getting too little calcium (only 50% of the daily requirement!) and were very much at the lower limit when it came to protein, due to a lack of financial resources. Also some B vitamins were too little or very much at the lower limit and the girls received too little iron as soon as they reach puberty.

→ Nutrition training

→ Tibetan food pyramid

In 2016/17, based on nutritional analyses of the then 8,500 children in the 8 Tibetan Children’s Villages in India, we had decided to start a pilot project:

In TCV Chauntra in northern India, we wanted to build a first cowshed for 15 – 20 cows, so that the children would get fresh milk daily and thus significantly more calcium and also more protein.