Educating the Children

"True happiness comes from a sense of peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion, and elimination of ignorance, selfishness and greed."          - - Dalai Lama of Tibet in his 1989 acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Peace By Leslie Petrovski Special to The Denver Post It is a wet Thursday, and Linda Sharp-Leonhard, executive director of the Tibetan Children’s Fund, remarks that the Tibetan refugees in northern India live in a hilly region, not unlike their home in Tibet. Although we are sitting in an underheated taco stand in Westminster, the photographs she pours from a manila envelope conjure up an exotic but melancholy world of monks in saffron and crimson, and children in tatters.

 

Sharp-Leonhard and her husband, Woody Leonhard, author of such techy bibles as "The Mother of All Windows 95 Books," "The Underground Guide to Telecommuting," and "The Underground Guide to Word for Windows," founded the Tibetan Children’s Fun after having spent years working in the Middle East and traveling throughout South and Southeast Asia. Their commitment to the plight of Tibetans in exile solidified after an unexpected audience with the Dalai Lama at his residence in Dharamsala, India. The audience was granted because Woody, armed with his Hasselblad, had photographed artifacts in Tibetan monasteries—pieces whose condition had been uncertain since the Cultural Revolution. At the time, Linda was six months pregnant with their son, Justin. After the meeting, the Dalai Lama blessed their unborn child. Awed by the Tibetan leader and shaken by the poverty they witnessed among Tibetan refugees, the Leonhards decided to find a way to help the Tibetan children, whom they see as the keepers of Tibetan culture. Since the Chinese conquered Tibet in the 1950s, millions of Tibetan have fled their country, searching for a place to live in peace; many have settled in India and Nepal. "The whole culture is being crushed by the Chinese," explains Woody Leonhard. "Religion, art, music—enormous amounts of culture that that go back millennia. If something isn’t done, the entire culture will disappear. Someone needs to stand up for them."

 

Started in 1993, the Tibetan Children’s Fund provides food, shelter, medication, clothing—including school uniforms—and education to Tibetan refugee children living in northern India and Nepal. The children either attend the Indian Central Schools for Tibetans, where classes are conducted in Tibetan or English, or they go to private Catholic boarding schools, where all classes are taught in English. The organization currently sponsors about 150 children—youngsters who are admitted to the program based on scholastic ability, motivation and need. "I tell every child that the way to heal the cycle of poverty is to get an education and a good education," Sharp-Leonhard says. "Our goal is to take young children, run them through the system and send them to college." Children who participate in the program must maintain good grades, especially in English, math and science. If their grades fall, they are put on probation for one year and eventually dropped to make room for others if they don’t improve. Like many refugee populations, the Tibetans in India suffer from discrimination, illiteracy and the clash of one culture rubbing against another. Tibetans in India accept jobs that are truly menial—like breaking gravel by hand.

 

Although Tibetan parents typically want to see their children excel, their own lack of education prevents them from shepherding their children through the system. Traditionally, few Tibetans pursue their educations beyond grade school. For sponsored kids, the Tibetan Children’s Fund fills gaps many Tibetan parents could never dream of—tuition in private schools, clothes that fit, help in negotiating the educational bureaucracy. Although the TCF kids are too young for college—a TCF dream—many are thriving, like Sherry Bumdon, one of TCF’s first sponsored children, who has been accepted into a prestigious private school in Darjeeling, and Karma Sonam Tashi, a 6-year-old recently orphaned when both parents died of tuberculosis, who continues to do well in school. "Many are continuing in school, where they wouldn’t otherwise," explains Woody Leonhard, "or they’re getting into better schools. The program has influenced a large number of them to go beyond grade school. We push and pull them to go beyond that."

An IRS-approved nonprofit corporation, the TCF is an all-volunteer organization. No one takes a salary, including Sharp-Leonhard, and volunteers who travel to India pay their own way. TCF promotional materials proudly assert, "All donations from individuals go straight to the children." In 1996, the organization reported $25 in administrative costs for the year, and this year the fund operates on a budget of more than $10,000. The organization is supported by individuals and corporations, including Pinecliffe International—Woody Leonhard’s software company—Colgate, Kmart, and IBM, among others. This summer when the Leonhards return to India, they will break ground on the TCF’s first construction project, a wing for a new Tibetan school in Gangtok, Sikkim. The school, which is run by the Tibetan government in exile, currently occupies a damp, dilapidated building of mud and bricks. The TCF donation to the project ensures the school will be large enough to accommodate 200 students. Called Thumi Sambhota, the school represents the culmination of a long-held "dream," the Leonhards say.

 

They also will be seeking new children for the program, catching up with currently sponsored kids, as well as delivering clothes and medical supplies. "The organization has always been focused on helping individual kids," Woody Leonhard explains. During the last few weeks, the Leonhards have been busy completing deadlines and packing clothing and supplies for their next trip to India, where they will spend two or three months. Sharp-Leonhards says she is often asked why they have gone to so much trouble helping poor children in India when so much poverty exists in this country. She rifles through a series of photographs. One depicts a brother and sister sitting with their grandmother on a bench—their eyes big like chocolate drops. The little girl wears an oversized house dress, the boy, mismatched shirt and shorts. Their parents make Tibetan shoes, earning about $288 a year.

"The poverty level is so much greater there than it is here," Sharp-Leonhard says. "Our children who are poor have subsidies, welfare, school lunches, access to education. These kids live in utter poverty, ramshackle houses with no heating; they’re cold. My son, who is 9 years old, says, ‘Mommy, I’m the luckiest little boy in the world. I’m never hungry and I always have clothes.’ "He’s had a unique privilege. I don’t think American children realize how lucky they are regardless of their family’s income. "These are the children who will carry on the cultural heritage of the Tibetan people," she continues. "It’s been established that more than 1 million Tibetans have been killed by the Chinese. We would like to see the Tibetan culture flourish; and these are the children who will be able to do that." For information on the Tibetan Children’s Fund, call 303-642-0492.

Contact address: Tibetan Children’s Fund Post Office Box 473 Pinecliffe, Colorado 80471