The Snowland Children Foundation

We are a very small and young foundation that has only been around since 2017. How did we get started? Well, that is quickly told: Due to a riding accident, I, by now president of the foundation board, came to a fitness center in Wil, SG, during rehab, which belongs to a Tibetan. Of course I knew something about the Tibetans: “7 Years Tibet”, the book by Heinrich Harrer, filmed with Brat Pitt. But that was it. Tendar Shitsetsang, in the meantime also a member of the foundation board, brought the subject closer to me, very gently, not obtrusively, as Tibetans are.

And – it “grabbed” me at the time (2011). As always, when something interests me, I knelt down and did research. Soon I was for the first time in Dharamsala in India, where SH the Dalai Lama resides since his flight in 1959. I learned about the Tibetan Children’s Villages there, called TCVs. There are 8 of them all over India, with now 7,500 children between 5 and 18 years old. There were times when 15,000 children lived there: fugitives or refugees from their Tibetan parents in Tibet, so that they could lead a new life in the Buddhist faith and with Tibetan education outside the Chinese borders. Since the 2008 Olympics in China, hardly any new children have come from Tibet because the Chinese have hermetically closed the borders.

Soon (2013) I myself was the godmother of such a child, Tenzin, who was sent to India by his parents when he was 5 years old. Since then, Tenzin and I see each other 2 times a year, which was unfortunately interrupted by Corona. As a nutritionist, I soon had close contact with the TCVs, made nutritional analyses and started, at that time still with Mrs. Kalsang Choedon Sharling, the director of the housemother training center at that time, to look for solutions for a better nutrition of the many children. The problem was always the cost, as no more than about 35 centimes per child per day were (and still are) available. This is how the project “Tibetan Children’s Villages in India” came into being.

It was different in Nepal, where about 10,000 Tibetans have been living for several hundred years, when they migrated from Tibet to Nepal. In 2015, there was a devastating earthquake in Helambu, the north-eastern region of Kathmandu, where Lang Tang National Park is located. And – that’s exactly where the Tibetans live. Again through my friend Tendar, who is married to a Tibetan woman from Nepal, I was able to make contact with the Tibetans in Nepal. We had spontaneously started collecting donations after the earthquake to help the people in the completely destroyed villages. In 2016, I went there for the first time and since then, together with “our” village of Bichelsee-Balterswil (Hinterthurgau), where the Snowland Children Foundation is also domiciled, we have been trying to help rebuild one of the villages, Timbu, which was practically completely destroyed by the earthquake. After rebuilding community houses, a school and a water pipe, we are now in the process of building an ecofarm.

All these activities were at some point no longer possible as a “one-woman-show”. So, starting in 2016, I made an effort to find “comrades-in-arms”. After the foundation was established in May 2017, we succeeded in 3 stages to bring together a wonderful foundation board with meanwhile 8 people until 2021, who all stand behind our projects with heart and soul. 4 Tibetans and 4 non-Tibetans seem an ideal combination to represent all interests well.

Annual Report 2020 (in German)

 

Balance sheet and income statement 2019

2019 RB FER – Snowland Children Foundation digitally signed def RS (in german)

The Board of Trustees

As of February 2021, the Foundation Board is complete with 4 Tibetans and 4 non-Tibetans:

Dr. Bianca-Maria Exl-Preysch

President of the Foundation Board
bmexl@bluewin.ch

More...

The president of the foundation board is a nutritionist with a doctorate (universities in Canada and Munich) and therefore ideally suited as a specialist for the nutrition projects in the Tibetan Children’s Villages (TCVs). She can not only do the nutritional analyses herself, but also evaluate them.
She was also able to put together the nutrition trainings, the creation of the training book with 10 lessons and the latest creation, a “Tibetan Food Pyramid” herself (together with the Science Council of TCV Chauntra). She has more than 35 years of experience in the scientific field of child nutrition of Nestlé Company at home and abroad, conducted studies on the subject herself, and spent 5 years in Australia, where she was responsible for the scientific supervision of 8 countries in Southeast Asia. Prior to that, she headed the Nutrition Department of Nestlé Switzerland for 10 years. She was born in Germany in 1953. She is a Buddhist.

Ulrich Preysch

More...

Ulrich Preysch (lic.rer.publ. HSG St. Gallen) was born in 1944 in Winterthur, Switzerland, and looks back on 40 years of experience at home and abroad in various areas of business. After graduation, Ulrich started his long business career with Hoffmann La Roche in Hong Kong. After 5 years in Hong Kong, he continued his career in a management position for a Roche subsidiary before joining the Nestlé Group. His last professional years were also spent in Australia, where he was the “Country Business Manager” for the Child Nutrition Division in Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands. He is responsible for the finances of the Snowland Children Foundation and maintains contact with the Eastern Switzerland Auditing Company and the Swiss Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations.

Zakay Tsering Reichlin-Härri

More...

Zakay Tsering Reichlin-Härri was born in Tibet in 1956 and came from Tibet via India to Switzerland at the beginning of the 1960s as one of 160 children in the so-called “Aeschimann Action”. There he grew up in an adopted Swiss family, but had contact with his Tibetan parents in India. After high school, he attended the teacher training seminar in Rickenbach, Schwyz and supplemented it with studies in remedial education in Zurich. Today he works as a remedial teacher at the SHP/ISF school in Ebnat-Kappel.
He is very active in Tibetan circles, has been on the board of VTJE (Tibet Youth Europe) for 10 years and together with Veronika Koller he leads the East Section of GSTF, Society for Swiss-Tibetan Friendship, where he was also on the board for 10 years. In addition, he is active in his village community and was, among other things, church administrator of the parish Neu St, Johann/SG.

Ruth Schweizer

More...

Ruth Maria Schweizer-Kielholz was born in Zurich in 1948 and has a very international background: Not only did she successfully graduate from Davies’s School in London with the Cambridge First Certificate, but she also worked for several years as a flight attendant at Swissair. Later, she spent many years abroad at the side of her husband, who, among other things, managed the business in Hong Kong and later Singapore at Crédit Suisse. In addition, she was always active herself, not least in many charitable areas such as refugee aid (Vietnamese boat people), home for the blind in Singapore, or as a founding member of the Swiss Women’s Association in Singapore. Privately, Ruth is a gifted painter of abstract paintings, which she conjures up with ever new techniques and motifs on her large canvases.

Jigme Shitsetsang

More...

Jigme Norbu Shitsetsang was born in Switzerland in 1971, is married and father of three sons. His parents are both from Tibet and met in Switzerland. At the age of 17 he spent a student exchange year in California, USA. After a commercial apprenticeship and two years of military service as an officer, Jigme studied social work in Zurich. He then worked as a social counselor for a financial institution in Zurich. From 2003 to 2006, he was head of the Frauenfeld guardianship office and then head of a home in Toggenburg. From 2011 to 2021, he served as head of social services and member of the management committee at the city of Gossau. In November 2020, Jigme was elected to the Executive Board of the City of Wils and has been in office as a city councilor since January 2021, heading the Department of Education and Sports. In addition, he was a member of the Wiler City Parliament for nine years and has been a politician for the FDP in the St. Gallen Cantonal Council since 2016. He is also involved in various associations and foundations.

Tendar Shitsetsang

More...

Tendar Shitsetsang was born in 1965 in Northern India in one of the British “hill stations and came to Switzerland at the age of 13. Since his family was very closely tied to the Tibetan government in Tibet, they had to leave Tibet for India practically at the same time as SH the Dalai Lama (1959). Tendar has devoted himself to the martial arts of karate and fitness. He is a certified Safs fitness trainer on the one hand and a karate instructor IKS/SKF on the other. Even today he is driving two tracks: On the one hand he is leading the Shotokan Karate School in Rickenbach (Wil) as a Swiss Olympic Member and on the other hand he is running his own Fitness Center “MY GYM – The Fitness Family” since 2010. For many years he was bodyguard SH Dalai Lama whenever he visited Switzerland and still runs marathons at the age of 56!

Dicky Tethong

More...

Dicky Yongzom Tethong was born in 1960 in Kalimpong in North-West India. At the age of 6, she came to Switzerland to live with Tibetan foster parents. After graduating from high school, she first worked as a management secretary at Geberit and later at Padma, a company that has been producing herbal medicine based on the Tibetan constitutional teachings in Switzerland for over 50 years. For 5 years Dicky then even worked as assistant to the personal representative SH es Dalai Lama in Zurich. Since 1995 she has been the team leader of the Migration Office in Zurich. In addition to the diverse and exciting professional activities, Dicky has volunteered for various Tibetan organizations, such as Tibetan Youth in Europe, Tibetan Women’s Organization, GSTF, and others, always serving on the board.

Prof. Dr. med. Peter Ballmer

More...

Prof. Dr. med. Peter Ballmer was born in Basel in 1954. After studying medicine and holding several positions as assistant physician and finally senior physician, he was head physician for internal medicine in Winterthur for 22 years. Professionally, his heart within medicine has always belonged to nutrition and he was one of the first internists who fully integrated nutrition therapy into medical therapy. Since his retirement in 2019, however, he is by no means inactive, but leads the GESKES (Society for Clinical Nutrition, Switzerland) as president and repeatedly takes on challenging assignments at various clinics. In his private life, Prof. Ballmer is an enthusiastic “mountain man” on foot or on skis. This is also where his enthusiasm for the Himalayas and thus Tibet comes from! Since 2019, he has been on the Board of Trustees of the Tibet Institute Rikon in the Tösstal, the oldest Buddhist-Tibetan monastery in Switzerland, founded personally by SH the Dalai Lama. Thus, he can be considered as a link between the Snowland Children Foundation and Rikon.