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Goodbye speech of
the new students
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Dear
friends and supporters of Braille without Borders,
These
words of a high-ranking politician in Tibet portray the acceptance of
the Lhasa
project and the training farm in the Shigatse/Pelshong region. In fact
the farm
has turned out to be a favorite picnic sport for Tibetan and Chinese
Government
officials. So much so that government officials have asked that BWB put
up an official
highway sign indicating the whereabouts of the project. Too many have
driven
right by and have had to make a U-turn on the national highway. Of
course
government convoys can do this!
Half a
year has gone by so it is time for an update.
- Gyendsen
goes to Japan
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Kienzen and Sabriye
in 1999
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Kienzen and Sabriye
in 2007
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Gyendsen,
a student of the first generation has been selected to receive the
IKEDA ICT
2007 SCHOLARSHIP. The eight chosen international blind and
visually impaired
students will first receive intensive computer training in Malaysia in
August
after which they will visit Japan as well. The world Blind Union Asia
Pacific
will be financing Gyendsen’s cost which
includes a laptop for him.
- "The
unforgettable story"
In the
spring of 2007, the preparatory school program students organized
a story telling competition. The pupils of all age groups were assigned
the task of
creating a story. There were three categories: animal stories, human
stories and ghost stories. In the category animal stories, 14 year old
Jampa
Kelsang won with his story about "The Tiger and the Deer", a
narration about
a sophisticated deer and its escape from a tiger. The 5 year old Nyima
Punzog
won the Category
Ghosts section. The unusual title of its still more unusual history
reads:
The Spirit in the Tiled Bathroom. It depicts a boy who likes to bathe
but is
chased out of his bathroom several times by a ghost. Winner of the
human
stories category is the 17 year old Dachung with his story: “The
Unforgettable
Story”. This story depicts the love between a blind boy
and a sighted girl along with the complications arising from this
situation.
This story has been presented as a radio play in English with the
speakers and musicians of the play being
children from our blind center.
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Dachung
is happy; he just received the first prize for the best story
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Wangla is
reading Braille.
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Damage from storm in Lhasa
Damage
from storm in Lhasa. In
January, the roof of the building had been damaged due to a storm.
Fortunately
no one was injured in this incident. Subsequently a Chinese firm. has rebuilt the roof.
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Massage students invited to Beijing
The
Chinese handicapped organization has invited five students and a
teacher
for
a comprehensive five-month course in medical massage. Every student
will
receive a national license and the costs will be taken care of by the
state.
Shigatse/Pelshong
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The Farm in Shigatse
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-Plans
for the summer
plans
for the summer for the summer. The construction of a bio bakery/cafe
coffee shop
is planned. This project has the following background: the farm has
been cultivating
an organic high land rye over the past two years. Paema Wangyel, a
Tibetan
domiciled in Germany and himself a baker and friend of Braille Without
Borders
would like to come to Pelshong and personally train some blind students
in the
art and skills of baking. Besides offering another vocational option to
our
blind, Paema sees the bakery as a smart business move. Traditional
Tibetan bread
is made from barley and wheat only. The Project’s bread will be
enriched with
rye, a nutritious addition to the traditional Tibetan diet. The bakery
will be
the first all-organic bakery in Tibet. This may not at first be a
selling point
with the local market. However the bakery will be situated on the main
road
connecting the Nepal border with Lhasa over which thousands of European
tourists travel each tourist season for whom organic products are an
important
consideration. Other organic products such as cheese and
vegetables, produced by
the blind, will be available for sale in the combination
bakery/sausagery/coffeehouse/medical massage with an ecological
composting (and
clean!!) toilet attached. The complex will be situated on the farm’s
pleasant duck
pond, which is bordered by ancient willow trees. This project is
financed
largely by a donation from the USA and from an orgainzation from
HongKong
.
INDIA -
Thiruvananthapuram
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| Construction
of Dormitory block June 2007 |
- International
Institute
for Social Entrepreneurs.
We hope
to open the international center for social enterprises engaged in work
with
the blind, in June 2008. The center will train blind individuals who
wish to
develop
projects in their own countries based on the Tibet Model. Thanks to the
hard
work of Tigi Philip, our local managing director and a highly motivated
group
of professors the framework of the curriculum, ranging from management
to
psychology and ‘soft’ skills has been completed.
Positions for a director and highly qualified teachers need to be
created. The institute
needed a new name in English, which would signify that training is
given
in
leadership and social entrepreneurship.
We have currently arrived
at the name:
“BWB
– International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs”.
Others
Book "The seventh year"
Last
Spring, we had been busy with the second reading tour through Germany.
During
the one and a half hour presentations, we read excerpts from my
latest
book “The Seventh Year”, latest reports from Tibet and India and showed
brief
film clippings. There were a lot of visitors for these events. The
highlights
were a reading to 35 inmates in the Werler security prison, a
reading in the dark at the Culture and Communication center
in Hameln, two
readings before an extremely enthusiastic public at the Stuttgart
Rudolf
Steiner School (these meetings were organized by an interested pupil)
and a
lively meeting in the culture and leisure
center Marburg, my second hometown.
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At
the moment we are looking for a publisher in the USA
who would be interested to publish the book in English.
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- “The seventh year” as an audio book
The Luebbe
Publishing House will bring our the audio
book in the autumn.
The specialty of the book is that it will be entirely read
by blind
people: myself and the voices of our senior
students, Kyila, Tenzin, Gyenzin and Bungso will be read by German
blind children. More on this in the year end report.
The
documentary BLINDSIGHT.
The
documentary films the attempt of some of our blind students to summit
Lhagpa Ri,adjacent to Mount Everest, led by Eric Weihenmayer, the first
blind person to summit Mount Everest.
It won the Audience's Choice
Award at the Berlin Film Festival in February this year. It
competed with 50 other films. The film, dubbed in German, will be
released this coming January. The voice synchronization by Paul and
myself has already been done.
A
Final 'Thank You'
Nothing
would have been possible without your
trust,ideas,suggestions,generous support and interest. In this light
and on this occasion, I offer you, on behalf of Paul and our expanding
international
team, my heartfelt thanks.
It would
be wonderful if you shared our news and gratitude with family and
friends.
With very
best wishes from a sunny Tibet,
Sabriye
PS. also
from Paul
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Aussicht in Tibet:
Ein
Yak vor dem
Yamdrok See
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