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KARUNA 09
- Karuna 09
At the UN Development Summit in September 2000, world leaders from 183 countries agreed on a 15 year plan to eradicate World Poverty. As part of their Millenium Development Goals they agreed to ensure that all children everywhere in the world have access to basic primary education by the year 2015.
At Karuna we are working to make this vision a reality. We believe that education is the single most important factor in bringing about positive social change. It gives people the capacity to make aware, informed choices in their lives and the skills and confidence they need to empower themselves and uplift their own communities.
We work with some of the poorest people in the world, helping to overcome the barriers that prevent children from getting the education they need.
In this Karuna newsletter we focus on Karuna-supported projects in the high altitude areas of the Himalayas. Here people are living in some of the harshest physical conditions in the world; and the barriers to education are more often due to extreme climate, poverty and physical remoteness. In these villages whole communities are cut off by temperatures that reach -50 degrees; schools are often empty because the teachers refuse to work so far from their home; and parents struggle to feed and support their families during the long winter months when farms lie frozen under thick snow.
Just over three years ago Karuna received major grants from the UK Government Department for International Development and Big Lottery Fund, supplementing the contribution of individual supporters, to fund an education and development program that covers a large area of the Indian Himalayas.
In this newsletter we focus on how this work is progressing, including a report on what we think is probably the highest-altitude school anywhere in the world.
Contents
Classroom in the Clouds
How Karuna is supporting educational centres for children living in some of the highest-altitude settlements in the world.
A Place like Heaven
A report on a special campus school where one man's spiritual vision is having a profoundly transformative effect on the lives of hundreds of deprived children.
Waves of Hope
How a media team in Leh is using radio broadcasts to improve education in remote parts of Ladakh.
Conscious Conservation
As a globalised economy comes into contact with traditional Buddhist cultures of the high-altitude Himalayas, a Karuna-supported project is helping local people to make sense of the complex choices open to them.
Credits
Text: Jonathan Clark
Photography: Pratap Rughani
Design: Vidyadaka
Editor: Vajrasara