We receive a lot of donations earmarked for education - more than $19,000 in 2002 and 2003 alone.  We put these funds to work by making small grants ($500-$2000) to schools to purchase items essential for the health and education of the children in their charge. Many of these schools are government-operated, but the local governments operating them simply do not have the cash to provide more than basic buildings, teacher salaries, and books.  Leadership is key; when Kham Aid Foundation finds a good, trustworthy headmaster, we work with him or her to identify the items most needed, where a little bit of money can make a huge difference in the lives of children.  

For more information about this program, please contact Kara Jenkinson

2003 GRANTS

Shangye Rimpoche Charity Primary School at Ganzi:  This is a nomad school started by Shangye Rinpoche, who also established a hospital in Ganzi. There are 120 students in grades 1, 4, and 5. Sixty of the children board at the school. There is no tuition or other cost to the students. When we first visited the school, we found that the only sports equipment they had was one basketball. The kitchen, which provides three meals a day to boarding students, was very primitive and unsanitary and needed upgrading. To this school, Kham Aid Foundation funded:

•  Sports equipment: 3 basketballs, ping pong table and paddles, 30 skipping ropes, 10 badminton racquets and shuttlecocks, playground exercise bars.

• Musical instruments: one accordion, one ‘erhu’ lute, five flutes, one tape player with speakers.

• Kitchen equipment: one set of large steamer baskets, one food warming bucket (electrical contraption for keeping food warm), one dual-purpose solar water heater, one large freezer

Dawu Erwan Primary School, a government boarding school for rural children. We sponsor 50 children at this school. To improve the health and sanitation conditions at the school, Kham Aid Foundation provided:

• Showers. Install shower plumbing, water heaters, and washing sinks for new facilities

• 10 dish-sterilizing cupboards

• one freezer

Litang County Nomad District Bilingual Primary School: This is a brand new school in downtown Litang established to centralize the education of poor nomad and farming children in the county. It is designed to hold 1080 children. Our field team found that in its first year of operation it already had 880 children—600 of them boarding at the school. Tibetan, Chinese, and English languages are taught, as are Tibetan dancing and art. Money was pulled from government offices throughout the county to build the facilities, but there was been no money for things like sports equipment, musical equipment, and even desks for the teachers.  Accordingly, Kham Aid Foundation provided the following items:

• 2 Ping pong tables 

• 2 Piano Accordions

• 2 Washing machines

• 25 Teachers’ desks

• 1 Tape recorder

Batang Tuanjie Minzu Primary School: This is the school that received the now famous washing machines and a freezer. We have been sponsoring 15 students (boys and girls) at the school beginning in 2003-4.  The school also received from us:

• 12 Dining room tables and chairs

• Cupboards and shelving for kitchen equipment

• Sterilizing cupboard

• 3 Cupboards for student bowls

• 10 Bunk beds

Batang Junior Middle School: We fund 20 girls at the Batang Junior Middle School. They received one grant in 2002 for Tibetan books for the school library.  Our visiting education team found that the kitchen had no freezer and there was only one washing machine for the 530 students at the school (most of them board). The school is rapidly expanding. They had 179 new students in 2003 alone.  Kham Aid Foundation allocated grants for and delivered the following items:

• 1 Freezer (1000 liters)

• 2 Washing Machines

2002 GRANTS

• A copy machine (see photos at right) for the Dawu Junior Middle School. The teachers were using an ancient silk screening technique to provide study materials for the children.
• Tibetan books for a school library at Batang Middle School
• Bunk beds (see photo below right) for a school dormitory at the Dawu Erwan Primary School
• Two new washing machines for the Tuanjie  Minzu Primary School, boarding school for 200 children in Batang.
• Repair of the kitchen at the Dawu Erwan Primary School.
• We made a grant to supplement eleven computers donated by Intel and delivered by Kham Aid to the Litang Middle School.

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2004 donations to Qiwu Primary School, Sershul County: (left) a crowd-sized rice cooker; (below) washbasins.