Aim and purpose of the Snowland Children Foundation and the Board of Trustees

Aim of the Foundation
With the occupation of Tibet by China at the end of the fifties of the last century, about 150,000 Tibetans lost their homeland by fleeing. Tibetans are still leaving occupied Tibet because the free practice of their faith is often not possible or they are restricted in their way of life. Especially the nomads suffer from the fact that their traditional life is made impossible by a massive exploitation of natural resources.

There are now significantly more Chinese than Tibetans (an estimated six million) living in Tibet. This threatens the survival of the Tibetans as a people with their Tibetan traditions and Buddhist. In schools, children learn Chinese; Tibetan is not spoken in official schools.

In the diaspora of India, Nepal or other Himalayan countries, survival as a people is also in question, as job prospects are often very poor despite good schooling. In India, most Tibetan children go to one of the TCV schools (Tibetan Children’s Villages). Often they are supported there by a “sponsor” from abroad. After finishing school, they are often left with “nothing”. Due to the poor job prospects, they then increasingly try to emigrate to Europe, Australia or even the USA. If they are accepted there, they integrate extremely quickly in these “second emigration countries. At the same time, however, they run the risk of being completely assimilated into the other country.

Commercial register entry
Snowland Children Foundation was entered in the Commercial Register Office of the Canton of Thurgau on July 13, 2017 under company number CHE-431.716.734. The original can be viewed here (in German)
Commercial register entry (PDF)

In the meantime the foundation board has been completed for the 2nd time and we now have 4 Tibetans and 4 non-Tibetans in the foundation board (see there). Here is the last entry in the commercial register from February 24, 2021
Entry in the commercial register
HR-.Statement-02 -2-.2021 HR-Statment-02-1-.2021

Tax exemption for companies and individuals resident in Switzerland

As of September 21, 2019, the Department of Finance and Social Affairs, Canton Thurgau, confirmed that the Snowland Children Foundation is a non-profit organization and tax-exempt. Voluntary donations to the foundation are therefore deductible with immediate effect (in German):

Steuerbefr. 2. Steuerbefr. 3 Steuerbefreiungsentscheid

Information:

Tibetans in India

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.

Since SH the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet in 1959, of course many children have arrived, sometimes with and sometimes without parents. Often the parents (especially in the first years) had to work in road construction and could not take care of their children.

This was the beginning of the so-called TCVs, Tibetan Children Villages. SH the Dalai Lama, together with his elder sister, first established one, but later more and more of these children’s villages, following the example of the SOS Children’s Villages or also the Pestalozzi Children’s Villages in Switzerland. At some times, 15,000 children between the ages of 3 and 18 lived in the 8 children’s villages!

For the first 50 years, the presidency of all the Children’s Villages was always held by Sisters SH. For the first time in recent years, a Nuer president, Thupten Dorjee-la, who is not from the Dalai Lama’s family, has taken over the leadership. Currently, about 8,000 children between the ages of 5 and 15 (or 18 depending on the Children’s Village) live in the 8 TCV’s.