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KHAM AID FOUNDATION 
DELIVERS MORE BANG FOR THE BUCK

Dear Volunteers and Friends,

As of Dec 4, Kham Aid Foundation took in $150,016 during this calendar year, mostly donated by individuals and private foundations. We also sent more than forty volunteers to the field to help out in our programs. They taught English, delivered wheelchairs and medical supplies, assessed ancient murals and buildings, and repaired teacher and doctor homes. Here's what we accomplished.

• This academic year, the number of children sponsored to study in primary or middle school is 126, more than double those we sponsored in academic year 2001-2.

• We trained ten new midwives each from Litang and Baiyu (Pelyul) Counties, in a five-week course, and equipped them with medical bags and supplies to serve women in their communities.

• Twelve volunteer teachers have given English classes at various middle schools, and to adults in the community, for periods ranging from three weeks to eight months.
• Our volunteers helped the students at Kangding Middle School create a website of their own, called KangdingWeb. The site is trilingual and features stories, essays, and artwork by the students.
• We brought an international, multidisciplinary team of conservators to Dhe-tsang Monastery where they assessed the condition of the buildings and artwork.
• We gave 240 free wheelchairs to the disabled people of Sichuan, of which 130 were fitted by our team of volunteers to people in Luhuo (Trango), Ganzi (Garze), and Xinlong (Nyarong).
• We delivered $10,195 worth of badly needed medical supplies and equipment to five rural clinics along the North Route through Kham.

• Sixteen teachers and doctors in two rural townships of Xinlong County had their living quarters improved so that that will be brighter, warmer, and more comfortable.

• Also in Xinlong, we helped eight uncredentialed teachers enter two-year programs at Kangding Normal University. Four are majoring in computers, and four in Tibetan.
• To top off our activity in Xinlong, one of Kham’s poorest areas, we did the research and planning for a new program that will, in 2003, give loans to ten families to build their own greenhouses.
• We sent donated classroom furniture to a primary school in Dengko Township, Dege (Derge), computers to the Litang Middle School, and clothing and toys to people in half a dozen poor communities.
• We planted ten thousand spruce seedlings in Yajiang (Nyachuka) County - and, with the help of American volunteers and local monks - several hundred more near a monastery in Aba (Ngawa).
• Our website, www.khamaid.org, helped lure more independent travelers to remote corners of Kham, especially Babang (Palpung) Township in Derge, where their dollars benefit indigenous people instead of big-city travel agencies.
• We gave the last installment of a $14,600 grant to Gyalten Rinpoche’s Private Charitable School in Ganzi (Garze), which they used for various infrastructure projects.
• We selected a new series of nine books to be published and distributed to schools in Kham. They were translated into Tibetan by a team of linguistic experts, and are now in final typesetting and preparation for printing.

I'm looking forward to an even more productive year in 2003. Thanks for your support!

Sincerely,

Pamela Logan

kham aid home