In 2006, the Tara Café Project initiated a program to fund the education of children living in the nomadic encampments and rural villages of the rugged eastern Tibetan Plateau (Sichuan & Quinghai provinces, China). While Tibetan children from these nomadic, semi-nomadic or farming families may have the opportunity to attend a residential or day school, school fees for even one child are beyond the means of many Tibetan families living in China. The Tara Café Project helps impoverished families to send their children to school, to learn to read and write in Tibetan, and receive a basic education grounded in their own rich culture.

Currently, the Tara Café Project is sponsoring 20 Tibetan children to attend schools in and around a small town in Sichuan province, and this number will increase to 30 in the coming year. For the cost of $400, a sponsored child can attend school for one year (two semesters) and receive a set of warm winter clothes and school supplies. In 2009, in association with the Mary A. Tidlund Charitable Foundation, our program is expanding to include four other schools in need, in the communities of Mangra, Yonru, Silang and Chabcha. In addition to providing scholarships for children to attend school, funds will go towards capital expenses such as desks, chairs, kitchen supplies, basketball nets and books. Money will also be allocated for the salaries of Tibetan teachers who are currently unpaid, and to create scholarships for promising school graduates to attend college or university. Our local Tibetan facilitators receive modest salaries from the fund for their invaluable on-the-ground assistance; email and postal service is sporadic or non-existent at this time so we rely heavily on our local contacts.

For more information go to their website at
www.taracafeproject.ca