Student Projects, Part 1

This week concludes our stay at the Sarah College for Higher Tibetan Studies. On Friday we will all be moving ten kilometers up into the mountains to the town of Mcleod Ganj, where His Holiness the Dalai Lama makes his residence. As mentioned earlier, the Tibetan Government in Exile is located here, and has strong concentrations of departments and offices located throughout Mcleod and Dharamsala. It’s been a busy couple of weeks. All of the students have been thoroughly engaged in independent research, and have each produced a needs assessment paper according to feedback they have received from government officials, their roommates, and the students and teachers on campus. The next step is to create a policy brief to be hypothetically sent to a congressman, state senator, or  President Obama on what action should be taken to improve one issue based on the needs of the Tibetan community.

The purpose of this is that when the students return to Miami in Ohio they will be presented with opportunities to talk about their experiences here, and may be asked some difficult questions by both American students and Miami’s large Chinese population. What would your answer be if a student said, “I was taught as a youth that Tibet has always been a part of China”, or perhaps “The Dalai Lama is a separatist that only wants independence for Tibet, and is conducting his peaceful campaign under the disguise of the middle-way path.” These are difficult issues to address.

Each student gave a short presentation on the results of the first stage of his/her research during class yesterday. Here’s the minutes:

Justin is working with the members of the administration to create a promotional video for the Sarah Institute, that will be shown to many international organizations and donors to the college, as well as prospective students. Throughout the research process it came to Justin’s attention that one of the biggest challenges for the college was money, and his video is designed with this in mind. He has been working hard to find out about the significant role that Sarah plays in the Tibetan community. Like many students he has been interviewing the Tibetan student body here, faculty, and administrators to record life histories, the history of the college, classes and activities here, and their position withing the larger scope of the Tibetan community.

Emily is creating a traditional Tibetan cookbook for the Tibetan community in and around Dharamsala. She has found that most of these traditional recipes are passed down orally. Because many of the older generations stay in Tibet, and cannot afford to make the trip across the border into Nepal, Bhutan, and India, there are less ways for Tibetan youth to learn about their traditional cuisine. Indian cuisine has also had a large influence on traditional Tibetan meals, and a new wave of culinary art is being introduced into the mainstream. Emily has contacted Abbot Laboratories in Ohio, and is trying to work with them  to get nutritional supplements and information to the Tibetan community. Abbot also has an internship program, and Emily will working on sending a Tibetan woman to the United States to attend the program. The woman would then be able to spread nutritional facts to the Tibetan community upon her return. She is working closely with Ryan on several facets of her project.

Renate’s project is centered around support for and awareness of female political prisoners. Throughout her research she has noticed a lack in counseling and emotional/mental support for women suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She has found that many women are horribly mistreated and tortured in Chinese prisons in ways that men are not. Upon her return to Miami Renate will be the President of the Association for Women’s Studies at Miami, and will take a proactive role in creating a partnership between AWS and the Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA). Through this partnership she hopes to bring awareness to the plight of the female political prisoners. To generate this awareness Renate hopes to include a spotlight monologue in the popular Vagina Monologues, which will run on a national scale. The proceeds generated for this on campus she would like to donate to the TWA. She is also planning on working with Dr. Akers and the Amethyst House in Columbus, Ohio to offer further support in terms of counseling and treatment to these women.

Ryan is also working on nutritional education within the Tibetan community. He’s come up with the B.E.A.N. program. The acronym stands for Breakfast Education Adds Nutrition program. Through interviews Ryan has been able to discern a real need within the community at Sarah. Many students complain of getting hungry at night, because dinner is early -- at 5:30pm. Most of them receive a stipend each month from the school to help provide them with certain needs, but it is only 200 rupees per month, or about four dollars. Buying snacks and sodas becomes out of the question. It is often the case that the only snacks available are salty and sweet treats like chocolate and chips. Through the B.E.A.N. program Ryan hopes to educate and implement alternate eating schedules for the students to provide them with a more nutritional, balanced diet. For breakfast most only have tea and toast, and according to his research, don’t have the opportunity to get sufficient amounts of vitamins and protein. He will see about moving dinner to a later date, and providing free healthy snack for the students each day, such as nuts or fruit. Simple things like switching white rice to brown rice could improve help when implemented on a daily basis. Coupled with educational pamphlets about nutrition he hopes to develop good eating habits amongst the younger generations.

Brian is focused on the economic stability of the Tibetan refugee system in Dharamsala. His interviews and research have indicated that financial support for the Tibetan school system is solid. Most of the funding for educational programs is facilitated through the government. But 40% of Tibetans that come into exile are over the age of 30 and can’t go to school, which creates problem and a need for job training. This is done through transit schools or the Institute for small trades learning. These institutes train adults to be tailors, computer specialists, restaurant owners, carpenters, etc. Brian has found that while programs for education are well funded, these other institutes are often left wanting. His continuing research is focused on exploring economic stability options and income generating enterprises like micro finance, and will be looking at the kinds of support that comes in from NGOs and international organizations in regards to them.

Alyssa is asking the question, “what does it mean to be Tibetan?” She has been in contact with numerous students on Sarah’s campus and is curiously exploring the multifaceted Tibetan identity. Because cultural preservation is such as large project outlined by the Central Tibetan Administration, it is important for an anthropologist to understand how the Tibetans construct their identity, and in turn their culture. She has found that through education many Tibetans play an active role in this preservation. Sarah institute is a primary educational institute in terms of language and religion, and as such is also one of the most concentrated research locations for fieldwork of this kind. Alyssa has also been studying what happens when groups of Tibetans are sent to America, and how they struggle with cultural preservation there.

Jackie is our art education specialist. Her interest here is on ancient Tibetan Thanke paintings and the Norbulingka Institute, where artists are trained and paintings are created. She’s been in contact with a Thanke master, and has been looking into transit schools and the Tibetan Library and Works for more information on the creation and preservation of the paintings. Through her research she has found that the 12 year training program offered at the Norbunlingka Institute is too expensive for many students to pay for to attend all at once. Currently the Institute has twenty-five students, but its directors may have to limit attendance to twenty students next year due to lack of funds to pay for facilities and teachers. Thanke paintings tell stories related to the schools, teachings, and practices of Tibetan Buddhism. Since Buddhism is so central almost every facet of Tibetan life, both for the monastic communities and the laypeople, the preservation of the art of Thanke is paramount. Jackie has considered splitting up the program into three year sections so that students could have a gradual payment plan, and could use their education after each three-year period to produce enough art to get by and pay for the next section of their schooling. She would also like to work with Glenn Platt of AIMS at Miami to work on digitizing important works for preservation. Another project Jackie is working on in conjunction with other students in the program is to put together a Thanke exhibit at the Miami University Art museum. The general idea is to raise funds to bring the Thanke master, or other educated Thanke painter to the United States where he/she would raise awareness through giving presentations at the Miami Art Museum, the Cincinnati Art Museum, OAEE, and other Ohio art education programs.

More student projects to come later today. Enjoy!