Sikkim Academy

The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Sikkim, overlooked by the world’s third highest mountain, embraces a traditional culture that today is pitched into new realities of globalisation.

In Pelling, western Sikkim, traditional lands are fast re-packaged for real estate speculation, pricing many local people out of the area. Some landless Sikkimese find work as day labourers on the new concrete hotels that crowd the spectacular vistas of Mount Kanchenjunga. But even as their hands mix the cement for a new guesthouse, the promise of permanent shelter for their own families recedes. More poignant still, the very houses they build distance them yet further from the chance of living in permanent, weatherproof homes.

Ill health, low wages, accidents or drunkenness often means a loss of earnings. It’s enough to tip some families across the line between being able to look after a young child or having to consider handing over a child to work or – where possible - a welfare charity.

A socially-minded lama from Pelling Monastery called Yapo Yongda, struggles to support his unique school, the DPC Academy.

The school currently has 237 students, many without families or money. Yapo, known still as Capt. Yongda (from his days when he was plucked from a crowd to join the King of Sikkim’s bodyguard) responds to the children’s needs as his own.

His experience in the King’s retinue gave him a glimpse of the hardships of ordinary Sikkimese across the kingdom.

As a public figure, trusted for his work in the monastery, people approached him for help. How was he to respond?

“Sometimes I would be called to a remote area and told – this child has been orphaned. No one can care for her. Can you take her?” Requests became regular. With his network of contacts, Yapo checked on the child’s background to establish the truth of the situation. “If I was satisfied that this was genuinely a needy case then what was I to do? I had to help.”

Pelling monastery only trains selected boys to be monks, so Yapo felt the need to start a new kind of school. “I wanted a Sikkimese school drawing on the best of our traditions, blended in a modern secular curriculum” he says.

Knowing how nearly many of his students missed out on education, Yapo is zealous in emphasising the opportunities here. He devised a teaching plan, rooted in strict routine, that urges children to make the most of each school hour. Outdoor assemblies, with games and sports are interleaved with language, arithmetic and a modern subject range.

Some classes are now led by former students who return after graduation, keen to give back something of what they have received. Many teachers could earn double the wage here if they taught at the government school, but are drawn to Yapo’s approach.

Convinced that he’d found the right formula for Sikkimese children, Yapo continues to fundraise and cajole anyone passing for help.

“Sometimes it’s been very tough. Not enough money to pay the teachers properly at the end of the month. Very little equipment. Cold in winter time. But we have to give these children a better chance” he says.

The school teaches a mix of Sikkim’s Nepali, Lepcha and Tibetan children. There’s no mark of Sikkim’s ethnic tensions inside the school, which particularly aims to target opportunities for the more marginal Lepcha communities from remote mountainous areas. Despite its very limited resources, the Academy has achieved some impressive results and a high level of harmony. Alumni have gone on to achieve post-graduate qualifications and some have topped the public exam results at age 16.

Yapo put his own son through the school and feels a sense of kinship with the children. As we walk to the junior dormitory, he is followed attentively by a young girl, Pramila and her brother Pramod, aged five and seven.

Yapo stops and Pramila walks up to his cloak, looking vertically up at him. They exchange greetings

There's a new softness in Yapo's voice, before Pramila turns with her brother and they toddle towards a plastic and string football.

“Their situation was desperate as they were orphaned so young” Yapo explains. “We did not have money to take both of them, but none of their family could offer a chance of education so we said ‘yes’. Of course it’s not just schoolbooks they need, but food and lodging and somehow we have to manage all of that.”

His seriousness suddenly lifts and Yapo laughs heartily “I look like Monk, but let me tell you how I became a father again.”

“The other children were asking Pramila who her dad was. She didn’t know. Both her parents died. I’m not sure what she remembers. She was very withdrawn when she first started here.

Then one morning she asked me if I was her father. I knew how important it was for her to feel that this is her home so I said ‘yes, I am your father’. Since then she’s settled down. She wants to be here with her brother and me. She likes the school and is really much happier now.”

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