Tsharka Tibetan Elem/Middle School, Dolpo, Nepal

This school year – in Tsharka the school year goes from May 1 through October 31 – was a very successful year. The school building project, which has been underway for three years, was completed and thirteen new classrooms are now in use. The NGO Dolpo Tomorrow built four classrooms and the NGO Chay Ya built five classrooms (with blue roofs). Two classrooms, which were constructed by the District Education Office in 2010 and which were cracked and crumbling, were demolished last year and the materials were used in building four new classrooms (with red roofs). The District Education Office funded a new block of toilets, improving hygiene at the school. A new greenhouse, funded by Chay Ya, has been built to supplement the greenhouse which was built by the NGO Drokpa in 2010. The decision was made to demolish the original school building, built in 2004 by the NGOs Room-to-Read and ICDF, and reuse the wooden beams in new construction. The demolition of the old building will begin next year. Tsharka School campus is being transformed. In the photo above, the new classrooms can be seen in the background, as a student receives a kata for passing his exams.

With the new wind generator donated and installed by the NGO Himalayan Currents, the school now has enough power to light the new classrooms, recharge telephones and computers, and operate a printer. The wind generator is visible at the top of the pole in the photo above.

The new buildings and activity at the school have prompted more local families to get involved in the school. The crowd at this year's school picnic and achievement ceremony was the largest ever. Students performed traditional dances in authentic dress donated by Lama Pema and his organization, as shown in the photo above. The school is the cultural, as well as the educational, center of Tsharka.

Enrollment is increasing. Of the 120 children in Tsharka, two-thirds of them are now enrolled in the school. Some of the remaining children are sent to boarding schools, but as Tsharka School facilities improve, parents are deciding to keep their children at home and enroll them in the local school. We are actively trying to convince parents whose children do not attend school to allow them to do so – and we are successfully enrolling more children each year.