Dolpo Bon School

The Dolpo Bon School

The school provides free education, food, clothing, and necessary requirements for schooling.

Unfortunately, the school and children do not have any sponsors, so from the very beginning, I have been supporting the school with my personal income from teaching, performing rituals, reading astrology in foreign countries, and through some donations from my foreign students and friends. I have been able to provide financial support to a limited number of children. However, there are still hundreds of poor children in the remote areas of Dolpo who do not go to school and become involved in domestic work at a young age. To provide free education opportunities to more children like them, we need more financial supporters.

The Importance of the School

There are many children whose parents’ backgrounds are very poor so they are unable to send their children to school. Actually, we have a government school but in that school, they do not teach our mother language. Therefore, to improve the livelihood of the people living in the rural area of Dolpo, we provide them with modern education whilst still teaching the children to preserve their culture and tradition. This is the foremost aim and objective to open this school. Now the school comprises of classes till grade five. However, due to the increasing number of students, the school’s infrastructure must also be extended. Hence, we need to upgrade it up to grade eight and then gradually to grade 12.

The Options that Are Offered to the Students

At the moment we only have classes teach up to 5th grade. After completing primary school, I ensure their continued education by giving them the following choices:

• They can join the English boarding school that is located close to this school to persue higher secondary education;
• If they are keen to study Bon Philosophy and religious study, I arrange for them to join the Menri monastery in Dholanji, Shimla, India; Where I had studied;
• If they want to continue the lineage of tantric lama in their respective villages, they have facilities to study traditional Bon rituals, preliminary practices, and advance level practice with the help of tantric lamas from the villages of Dolpo & myself. In the village there are 12 students, the first batch to complete primary school, that are now helping in the villages and learning Bon Buddhist rituals. All of them are doing practices under my guidance. They have also all taken three-year workshops from me.

Dolpo Bon Society

The Dolpo Bon Society was registered in the District Administration Office in 2000 as a non-profit organization. The Dolpo Bon School is running under this organization. Generally, we help children and women continuously. In fact, that was our foremost aim and objective to establish the society.

One of the plans is also to build a small hospital in the village. This is, in fact, a very urgent need because, in our area, children get married at a very young age. Therefore, most of the women die during the delivery/ birthing process. This year I saved a mother and a child. I brought them from the village to the hospital. I felt so happy when both of them survived!

The Estimated Expenditures for the School are as follows:

• Expenditure to build Girls’ Hostel consisting of eight rooms with two storey, using good quality materials: $100,592.95;
• Expenditure to build two storey hose consisting 12 class rooms, using good quality materials: $106,425.70;
• Expenditure to build the Kitchen: $ 85,000.00;
• Cost of extending the pipeline from 5 kilometers to resolve the drinking water issue: $18,000.00; &
• We have been spending, on average, $ 35,000.00 per year in salary for the teachers and school expenses.

I am requesting you from the bottom of my heart, with my two hands joined, to help me with my project as it would not be possible without the help and contribution of kind people like you.

Lama,
Khenpo Nyima Kunkyap and
The Staff of Dolpo Bon Society Dunai
Dolpo Nepal