Rokpa Projects In Tibetan Areas of China

Overview

• Total Population: an estimated 10,859,279 (2001 census)
  Of these about half - between 5-6 million - are ethnic Tibetan

• GNP per capita per year: US$170
  (compared with US$33,900 in the USA)

• Total adult literacy rate: 13% females, 38% males

• Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births): 147

The area where the Tibetan people live in China covers an area equal to half the size of Europe, about 2,108,700 sq km. There are great variations in the elevation. The southern gorges can be as low as 1,700m and the mountains of the Himalayas can exceed 8,000m. The average altitude is around 3,000m.

Being on a high plateau it suffers extremely harsh winters and is one of the poorest areas in the world. Healthcare is generally unavailable in rural areas and too expensive for most people. There is one qualified doctor for each 16,830 of the population. Only 37% have access to clean water. There are often no roads and the region is only accessible across the steppe by jeep or on horseback.

Most Rokpa supported projects are in rural areas of Eastern Tibet, traditionally known as Kham and Amdo. These now extend over 5 Provinces: The Autonomous Region of Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu.

Education

£5 a month supports a child at a day school. A residential school providing food, clothes and medicine costs £25 a month.

World Bank figures give adult literacy as 38% (male) and 13% (female) in Tibetan areas. Many teachers at existing schools have few or no qualifications and children are not taught in their own language at most Middle Schools. In many areas Tibetans have lost the ability to speak Tibetan and parents frequently cannot afford to send their children to school at all.

Rokpa supports over 70 schools: primary schools; middle school; colleges both religious and secular; and, more recently, university education. These give priority to the very poor, orphans or those from families with only one parent. Children are taught in their own language, receive a standard education and learn cultural subjects.

Less than 10% of Tibetans receive a secondary education. Very few can afford to complete their schooling or receive any training. Vocational training is now part of all Rokpa secondary schools education. Students learn the traditional crafts and technical skills that are most likely to lead to local jobs.

Many students have already qualified through Rokpa teacher training colleges and now run small schools in their own areas.

Culture & Heritage

For hundreds of years Tibet evolved its own rich language, arts, medicine and philosophy. As well as seats of spiritual accomplishment and training, monasteries were the heart of all social, educational and medical provision. Most were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and, whilst some have been rebuilt over the last 15 years, with the recent influx of other ethnic peoples into the area the Tibetan culture and traditions are now seriously endangered. In some areas Tibetans are now unable to speak their own language.

Rokpa is working to reverse this process and since 1990 has ensured that the Tibetan language is taught in the schools Rokpa supports. Children are encouraged to learn traditional crafts, dance and song, college text books are printed in Tibetan, the art of woodblock printing is funded, Tibetan medicine factories and clinics are supported, students are sponsored to become doctors of Tibetan medicine and Rokpa supports the training of monks and nuns.

read more about Tibetan Culture & Heritage

Environment

Tree felling has taken place over a number of decades in Tibetan areas and there has been subsequent erosion and flooding. Climatic changes are causing further difficulties to the nomadic way of life and hunting has led to the extinction of some species and endangered others.

Rokpa supports projects that set up tree nurseries, plant trees, employ local people as rangers, protect the flora and fauna and educate villagers about their environment. Sites are protected that are considered sacred and in danger of being used for mining or other exploitation. There are also plans for the cultivation of medical herbs.

Rokpa supported schools now include environmental studies in their curriculum and it is part of the training at a teacher training college.

£32 pays the salary of a forest ranger for a month.

Health Care

World Bank figures:

• one qualified doctor to each 16,830 of the population
• infant mortality is 147 per 1,000 live births

In rural Tibet health care hardly exists and most cannot afford the medical help available. Tibetan medicine was successfully practised for hundreds of years but nearly died out around the time of the Chinese cultural revolution. Produced mainly from locally available natural materials, Tibetan medicine makes health care affordable and accessible to local people.

Rokpa is helping by training health workers and doctors, in both western and traditional Tibetan medical methods. Over 200 medical students have now graduated and have set up clinics in their own villages. Over 20 health centres have been started in areas where people would otherwise have no access to healthcare.

It costs as little as £50 to support a clinic for one month. Only £40 per month will pay for the training of a medical student.

Socio-Economic

Most rural Tibetans live far below the absolute poverty level as defined by the World Health Organisation. In May 1998 the annual average income in Qinghai was estimated at £40.

The traditional nomadic and farming way of life is now becoming more difficult to sustain, and Tibetans find it hard to compete in the modern job market. Unemployment levels are high, there are no government pensions and virtually no social services.

Rokpa works by helping the old, the sick and those who are destitute, but also by supporting sustainable employment projects. Funds to start a vegetable and fruit growing business at Dongga near Lhasa made over 80 families self-supporting. Support is also given to the villagers of Cha Den who suffer from Kashin Beck disease - a chronic and painful inflammation of the bones - and are unable to work.

It costs only £20 a month to provide food and care for a disabled person at Cha Den.