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Kham Aid Kids
A report on our scholarship program, and the children it benefits

October 20, 2000

Dear Friends of the Kham Aid Foundation,

Part of our work during this field mission has been to meet children who are attending middle school thanks to people (you!) who are sponsoring them through the Kham Aid Foundation scholarship program. We have sponsored children in the following counties:

Litang county: 11 in middle school Derong county: 13 in middle school Dawu county: 5 in middle school Nyachuka county: 12 in primary school (we couldn't meet these kids because it was a school holiday when we came by) Dartsendo county: 1 in middle school

During our visits, we interviewed some of the kids, and took all their photographs. Those of you who are sponsors will be receiving thank you letters and photographs of your kids in the mail in due course.

In Derong our sponsored kids are all girls. One of them is Tseren Drolma, age 14. Her sponsor, Dana Isherwood, was part of my field team visiting the school, so of course Dana was eager to meet Tseren and talk to her. We found out that Tseren likes to play basketball. She has one younger sister. Their parents are farmers. In order for Tseren to travel to school, she has to walk for four hours to the highway, and then travel a further 12 km to the county seat where the middle school is located. Naturally, she can't do this every day, so she boards at the school and goes home only occasionally. The scholarship monies are mainly for her room and board. Without money for room and board, she could not go to school. Tseren likes to read about sports. She wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

Another Derong girl is Losong Droma, age 14. Her family's farm is located two hours away by car, but when she goes home once a month, she usually walks the distance, accompanied by other children from the same village. She has two younger sisters. Their mother died this year, leaving the father to run the farm and raise the children alone. They grow barley and potatoes; they also own one horse, four yaks, and three pigs. They couldn't afford to slaughter any animals this year but they used some earnings from their crops to buy some meat to eat.

Here is some background on Derong county: it has a comparatively low elevation; the county seat is only 2400 meters above sea level. But the road connecting it to the rest of the county is very bad, and so it has lagged behind other areas in economic development. The county has a population of about 30,000, and the middle school (which covers grade 7 to 10) has a total enrollment of only 194. Of these, 83 are girls. Were it not for our 13 sponsored children, girls would be terribly underrepresented in the school. (There is also a brain drain among boys; each year about ten primary school graduates drop out to become monks).

Today we just added a Dartsendo (Kangding) girl named Zhang Hongbi to the program. (Many Tibetans in Dartsendo use Chinese names for official purposes such as school enrollment). Although Dartsendo is by far the richest county in the prefecture, it is not without poverty and suffering. Zhang Hongbi's father died five years ago, and this past June her mother succumbed to lung cancer, leaving her and her brother orphaned. They have no relatives in the area to take care of them. The two children, age 13 and 17, live in a tiny apartment on the grounds of the county hospital, where their mother worked. Zhang is in her first year of middle school and is an excellent student, but the death of her mother has thrown her life into turmoil. She fears that her brother will have to leave home to seek work, and she'll be sent to an orphanage. With the help of a Kham Aid Foundation sponsor in Vermont, she'll have a stipend to help cover food and daily necessities. The mother's work unit is expected also to chip in (although it hasn't yet). Expenditure of the donated funds will be supervised by the school headmaster, and a representative from the Ganzi Women's Federation, which first brought Zhang's case to my attention.

In Litang, six of our eleven 2000-2001 kids are sponsored by a single private donor, and the other five are sponsored by the Pan Pacific South East Asia Women's Association, Los Angeles chapter. Litang is nicknamed "high city" because it's 4019 meters above sea level. (see a photo of Litang here). This rough environment has inhibited economic development, especially in the countryside. Nevertheless, the director of education for the county, a Tibetan named Gele, has been nationally recognized for the excellence of the schools under his direction. The Litang middle school (see photo) is very well run. The teachers are so dedicated that some of them were dipping into their own slender pockets to help kids stay in school. These are people who earn only 400-800 yuan ($50-$100) a month! They were extremely grateful when they heard that some Kham Aid Foundation sponsors had offered to help out.

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