This project is to re-constructing the prayer hall of Fudi Village. In addition, to buy 50 prayer wheels, Tangkas, Buddha Images, religious books for the prayer hall and fill in the half-empty clay images of the temple; to repair the leaking roof of the village temple and make a mini-path around the prayer hall wider, and widen the road underneath the prayer hall by embanking a 1000-meter-long and 10-meter-wide dam in Fudi Village.

Shem USA funded this project

Samtsogye is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Human Resources Management Values in Development, as well as doing an internship, working part-time and volunteering in several International organizations like (WYA) World Youth Alliance, (PETA) People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and Greenpeace Asia Pacific in the Philippines. She is from Labrang County, Ganlo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Amdo area. She was one of the incipient Gender program directors of Shem Women’s Group from 2006-2008

What? Rebuilding Fudi Village Prayer Hall, and embanking a 1,000meters long and 10-meters-wide dam

Who? Villagers of Fudi Village, Labuleng Town, Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, and PRC.

Photos of project implementation 

Every afternoon, the villagers crowd around the prayer hall to pray and entertain themselves with various topics.

On Oct 23rd 2009, during the first village meeting, Samtso presents the donor funds for the project and chooses the secondary project managers with the villagers.

The co-managers of the project, including Sunam, Sangjie Duldub, Aka Jumay, Aka Ludi Xinba, Zhoutaijia, Sulba, Geritso and Yangmo.

The name order is from left to right.

The villagers plan the specific activities to implement the project.

The skilled prayer hall wall builders measure some statistics and determine the labor

cost accordingly   

Prayer hall wall builders examine inside of the prayer hall with villagers.

The wall builders measure the back wall of the prayer hall. 

An unexpected accident happens at the stone quarry in the village.

On Nov. 15th 2009, the villagers construct the embankment during harsh weather.

Digging dirt and carrying it to the project site one kilometer away.

Villagers carry dirt to the project site in a mini truck

Carrying water from Xiahe County river from 5 kilometers away, since in the winter the

village water reservoir is frozen

On Dec. 15^th2009, the villagers carry sand to the project site in a mini truck.

The villagers carry stones in mini trucks from 10 kilometers away to the project site.

Building the prayer hall and the dam in Fudi Village

On Feb. 20^th 2010, the carpenter cuts the wood to build the prayer hall.

The villagers carry wood and assist the carpenter.

The villagers cut Fentolk (a type of wild plant) to put at the top edge of the prayer hall

as one of the symbols of a Buddhist temple

New shrine in the prayer hall is full of grand Thangkas and Buddha images.

The repaired temple with enlarged path around 1,000 meters of the dam below.

The newly built prayer hall of Fudi Village in 2010

Overview of the prayer hall in Fudi Village

Project Summary

Project name: Cultural Preservation Project for Fudi Village

Project goals: The overall goal of this project is to preserve the cultural traditions of Fudi Village.
The immediate goal of this project is to re-constructing the prayer hall of Fudi Village. In addition, to buy 50 prayer wheels, Tangkas, Buddha Images, religious books for the prayer hall and fill in the half-empty clay images of the temple; to repair the leaking roof of the village temple and make a mini-path around the prayer hall wider, and widen the road underneath the prayer hall by embanking a 1000-meter-long and 10-meter-wide dam in Fudi Village. 

 Location of the Project: This project is located in Fudi Village. Fudi Village is situated in Labuleng Town, Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, PR China on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.  It lies in the southeastern area of Gansu Province, 290 kilometers from the Capital of Qinghai Province at longitude 102 degrees and latitude 35 degrees; the total area is 6,273.88 square kilometers (Huari Dongzhi 2005, Gonbao Nanjie 2005).

Project beneficiaries: The total numbers of the individuals who have benefited from the project are the entire Fudi villagers (approximately 350 people), which include a diversity of groups: men, women, children, elderly, and disabled people.

Implementation organization/individual:

Samtsogye(the primary project manager).  The secondary managers are Sunam, Sangjie Duldub, Aka Jumay, Aka Ludi Xinba, Zhoutaijia, Sulba, Geritso and Yangmo, and Shem Women’s Group, who collaborated to make this project happen.

Contact group: Shem Women’s Group.

Fund received: Amount, date and date received

On December 19th 2009, Samtsogye received 27,305.6 RMB (80% of donor funds) from Shem Women’s Group. The project manager will receive 6,826.4 RMB from Shem after she completes the project successfully with a well-organized final report. 

Details of project activities

Originally planned project activities:

Get ideas from local people and gather information on their condition and ideas for a project by holding some meetings. The project manager has chosen 3 people to form a local project committee to be responsible for the sustainability. (Completed)

1. Held a meeting with the village leaders to make the basic budget for the project.  

2. Held a meeting with the village leaders to list the basic materials needed for rebuilding the prayer hall.

3. Held a meeting to measure how many meters the width and height of the prayer hall should be expanded. (Completed)

4. Held a meeting with the village leaders and the engineer. (Completed) The main content was about where the materials will be purchased: cement at the County Cement Company in Xiahe County; red bricks and cinder blocks at the County Tile Factory in Xiahe County, etc.

5. Secured funding from donor organization.

6. Collect the total local contribution from the villagers on 18^th of Oct 2009.

7. Local people collect the stones, sand, and earth from 13 km away near the village’s winter pasture.
8. Buy building materials from Xiahe County. Go together with the village leaders and the engineer in order to ensure the quality of the materials.

9. Buy 32 prayer wheels.

10. Repair the prayer hall.

11. Evaluate the prayer hall.
12. Take pictures.

13. Interview the local people (men, women, and children)

14. Interview the village leaders.

15. Write final report.

16. Send final report with pictures and receipts to donors.

Activities realized in the framework of the project procedure:

 1. On the evening of October 23^rd 2009, Samtsogye held the first meeting with Fudi villagers to choose the secondary project managers based on the consensus of the villagers.

2. Samtsogye, the primary project manager presented 80% of the project funds, which she got from the donor on Oct. 20^th, 2009, to the project accountant (the eight chosen project managers) in Fudi Village.

3. From October 25^th 2009 to November 15th 2009, Fudi Village started to work from 9:00 am until 17:00 pm every day to collect stones, sand and earth to bring to the project site,10 kilometers away.

4. On Oct 25^th 2009, the village leaders collected 200 RMB in advance from each household to make sure that all the representatives come for work on time every day.

5. On Nov. 5^th 2009, purchased 1,000 ton of cement for building the dam and for paving the amended paths.

6. The best suited 36 payer wheels were ordered from Labrang monastery on Nov. 20^th 2009. Fourteen more prayer wheels were added, which is different from the proposal.

7. On Oct. 25th 2009 and Oct. 30^th 2009, consulted two different groups of the carpenters about a reasonable cost for the project. The Tibetan carpenter from Xunhua would start the project on Feb. 11th 2010, according to the lunar calendar.

8. On Nov 1^st 2009, consulted the brick and stone builder for the prayer hall.

9. On Feb. 11th 2010, according to the lunar calendar, the project was started. The carpenters and the temple builders arrived.

10. On March 15th 2010, the temple wall builders started building the walls.

11. On April 12th 2010, the prayer wheels were installed.

12. The Filtok plants were put on the walls and the shrine inside the prayer was hall completed.

13. The icon images were printed by the local villagers for the temple.

14. The side dam was built up.

15. The photos were taken

16. On September 15^th 2010, the project was completed.

17 The head Lama of Labrang Monastery, Amdo Jamyang Xeba, visited Fudi Village to bless the newly built prayer hall.

18. Announce the project completion date to the support organization, Shem Women’s Group.

19. Phone interviews with some villagers.

20. Take photos

21. Write reports

22. Send final report with pictures and receipts to donors.

23. Revise the final report if needed.

24. Get the 20% of the donor funds from Shem after the report is approved and give back to the local villagers who lended this amount of cash during the project implementation.

25. Get the project management payment from Shem and distribute to the project managers who have taken most responsibilities as recognition.  

Timeframe

Started the project in the middle of October 2009, and implemented on September 15th 2010.

1. At the end of October 2009, the project was started, but the cold weather and frozen ground caused the project to stop on November 15^th 2009
2. On Febrary 11^th 2010 (lunar calendar), the project was restarted.
3. From March 2010 to the middle of April, the carpenters worked on making the shrine and wooden cases for the prayer wheels.
4. From May 2010-June 2010, the wall builders worked.
5. In the middle of June, locals worked and implemented the side dam of the prayer hall.
6. From July through the middle of September, skillful workers and locals cooperate to implement the project.
7. Got the most precious blessing on the head Lama of Labrang Monastery –Amdo Jamyang Xeba.

Project finances

Original Budget

Actual Budget

Notes:

*1. The prayer hall has been enlarged during the rebuilding process, so we needed to purchase 50 copper prayer wheels to entirely fill up all the wheel cases around the hall. Each one costs 300 rmb.

*2. Bought 5 Buddha images and gilded them with golden powder. The Buddha images of Tara cost 4,600 rmb; Medicine Buddha cost 4,100 rmb; Manjusri cost 3,700 rmb; Anitori Buddha King Kong cost 3,860 rmb and Deity cost 3,740.  The total cost of the images amounted to 20,000 rmb. These were not proposed in the original proposal.

*3. Bought 1 Siltok, which cost 900 rmb and 23 religious books each costing 80 rmb (2,740 rmb in total)

*4.Three iron strings, 38 rmb each, 114 rmb in total.

*5.Thirteen number eight Iron Strings cost 4 rmb each and 52 rmb in total

*6. Three inks to put under each of the prayer halls, each costing 3.00rmb and 9.00 rmb in total

*7. 450 mini trucks of stone, sands, and earth, and 20,000 red bricks per mini truck of substance cost 50.00rmb, in total 450*50=22,500rmb. Each red brick cost 0.50 rmb, 20,000*0.50=10,000 rmb, and the total cost is 32,500rmb in the shown receipt.

*8. Payments for carpenters (structure the roof and sides of the hall and building the Gengarawa) cost 8,400 rmb, masons cost 29,610 rmb, coloring the entire prayer hall cost 2,000 rmb, and building a new shrine cost 7,000 rmb. The total cost was 47,010 rmb.

*9. 40 large bundles of Fintok plants, 100 rmb each, 4,000 rmb in total

*10. 26Nails/4=104; 8 slates/40=320, 3 white strings, sandpaper, black ink, Ci, glue, and strings which cost 46.00rmb.  The total cost was 470 rmb.

*11. Carpenter fee (for building 16 wooden cases for prayer wheels) cost 650 rmb each and 10,400 rmb in total.

*15. 183 squares of wall building cost 170.00 rmb each, 31,110 rmb in total.

*16. No tiles in actual project were used.

*17. Cement is donated by the local government for the building of the side dam.

*18*19. Project expenses fee and project management payment will be collected from both donors and locals and distributed to the project managers who devoted their time and efforts for its successful implementation.

Difficulties and lessons learned

Difficulties 

 As a primary manager of the project, the difficulties I have encountered were that I couldn’t get the official receipts for the related items purchased for the project. The kit needs for implementation of the project were purchased very scatteredly in the benefit of getting lower prices for the items. All the prayer wheels were ordered from Labrang Monastery, though there were no official receipts generated from the computer, only the stamp of the monastery was available on each hand written sheet of receipts.

The Thangkas and Buddha icons were purchased in the same way and have no formal receipts.

Meanwhile, the other items like wood for making the case for each prayer wheel and for rebuilding the prayer hall. Although not the entire hall decorated by the prefect material wood, there are some indeed portions needed wood. This wood was purchased from local individuals, since selling wood is not allowed according to the law. On the other hand, selling wood directly causes environmental destruction. Those individuals only could provide their ID numbers and finger print as proof for the receipts.

Implementation of the project had to be postponed temporarily due to sowing, weeding, harvesting, the festivals of the locals, and the weather conditions.  These factors largely impacted the duration of the project implementation.  

In addition, the local project managers are not comfortable to talk through phone very much. They will only share the good news with Samtsogye and hide the negative news such as other villagers don’t come to work on time or other difficulties they have met with searching for suitable, skillful workers and the prayer hall building materials in terms of price.

Lesson learned

The most effective lessons I have learned from being involved in this project are: First, it is always very important to let more locals participate in the activities of the projects. This will help the project happen and it will be implemented almost perfectly, beyond your expectations. Especially, if the finances of the project are handled by the locals (the appointed managers), then they are willing to give more local contribution if needed.  Secondly, through managing this project I have learned that it is excellent to have a diversity of people involved in the project managing process, especially when implementing construction projects. The prayer wheel project recieved suggestions, advice or direct help form the village monks, men, women, the elderly and children in order to have a historical and remarkable prayer hall in Fudi Village for another half century.

By managing this project, the locals in Fudi Village became more close to each other and realized the importance of solidarity in completing a task. Obviously, tangible rewards are needed for the locals during the process of the project implementation; however, it is hard to provide these incentives. A nice praise and positive reinforcement for their good deeds are needed to maximize their contribution and support. Furthermore, we know that trusting and having faith in others is very important to implement the project successfully.

Implementing this project by the Fudi villagers completely destroyed unreasonable statements such as, “there is no need to let females get higher education,” “listening to women is no good,” “we local people are mostly illiterate and know nothing.” These statements are no longer realistic in Fudi village.

Furthermore, this project is very successful in terms of management and involvement of various backgrounds of people: the local villagers, including the Fudi Village monks, who are in Labrang Monastery, and the local government.  This project not only rebuilt the prayer hall, but also built 1,000 meters of dam and road, which functioned very well. As a saying goes , “One stone kills two birds.” The dam not only protected the prayer hall, but also protected the primary school in Fudi Village. Therefore, the county government voluntarily offered 6 sacks of cements as contribution. The offering is not that much, but help from the government was much needed.

Changes made in the original project proposal and budget

 This project shifted from the original plan, to purchasing 32 prayer wheels, repairing the 4 side walls of the hall and widening the path around the prayer hall, which cost 106,520 rmb in total. During the actual implementation of the project, we enlarged the scope of the project to include buying 50 copper prayer wheels, building a 1,000-meter- long side dam to protect the prayer hall, buying Siltok, Buddha images, carving clay icons, building a mini-shrine, gilding the icons, and coloring the walls. The actual project cost 185,468 rmb. All the skilled workers are Tibetans, who belonged to a informal team, so they are not able to provide receipts with stamps on it, but gave their finger prints and ID numbers.

Appreciation Letter

Translation:

Dear donor organization,

Thank you very much for making this project happen and entirely being supportive towards our village. We heard so much about Shem Women’s Group, about the great work you have done in different areas in various fields. This project is amazing, we are grateful to the donor and we are proud ourselves as well to have a grand prayer hall in the center of the village. We know that there are not many sources to support building prayer halls or buying religious books, but Shem US is the most understandable organization to address local people’s needs. For us, being an ancient, pure Tibetan village, it is very crucial to have a prayer hall like what we have built now more than anything else. This prayer hall will be with all of us, including whoever was born in this village from generation to generation.

We truly wish Shem is able to continue to do more projects and implement without borders. We hope other villages like ours will get help from Shem as well.

Sincerely,

Fudi Villagers

Sept. 15^th 2010 

Interviews of the project beneficiaries

Aka Jumay

Aka Jumay is a monk in Labrang Monastery and was born in Fudi Village. He is 45 years old. He is one of the knowledgeable monks in Labrang Monastery. He is designated as the manager of administration of the Labrang Monastery (拉卜楞寺管会主任).

“Samtso (the first project manager), I represent all the Fudi Village monks in Labrang Monastery and all the Fudi Village to thank you for your loving, generous and caring birth village at first hand.

Secondly, I thank you notwithstanding the limited distance, flight cost and busy schedule to come home at this time for starting our village project. This is not only repairing a prayer hall, more deeply, this is to hand down the unique, special, rare Tibetan cultural in this global village.

Thirdly, thank you very much for caring about Fudi Village more than any one else in this village. I am amazed by your courage and solicitous characteristic. Out of consideration based on our tradition, number one, you are a female, but you are doing a good deed that not many males have done in the past or at the present; Number two, you are very young, but you consider our village as the priority for writing a wide-ranging project proposal to ask organizations aid.

Finally, I would like to say that in Fudi Village, we have knowledgable and more experienced people than Samtso, but no one yet has had the empathy as Samtso –a young, female college student. As a monk, I volunteer myself to support you to finish the project and protect the prayer hall after it finished”.

Yangmao is a young woman from Fudi Village and has lived in Fudi Village since from childhood she is one of the best friends of Samtso.

“I didn’t have a chance to go to school like Samtso did when I was a kid. I depended entirely on my faith to repetitively do the extrinsic labor in the village all year around. Last year, I was pregnant, and the local Lama recommended me to circumambulate a nearby temple to do regular exercise and gain bliss fromit. At that time, actually two years ago, I had to take a trip to Labrang monastery to fulfill this blessed commentary for my dearest daughter’s health coming in to this world.  This was due to the prayer hall in our village being in a really terrible, shabby condition and the narrow path made it difficult for a pregnant mother to pass through and the cracked walls seemed close to falling down at any time, crashing on people as they pass by.

Today the pregnant mothers can circumambulate our village prayer hall. It is safe and much more convenient.  In addition, we can save a lot of money, which is spent on the transcription during the pregnancy stage to go to Labrang Monastery for almost Nine months. ” Thank you my pal-Samtso, you have the cleverest concerns always and this time rebuilding the village temple has brought lots of advantages for us. Look at Samtso, we know clearly that how important education and being literate is. I will exert all my efforts let my daughter go to school.”

Sunam and Suba

“Thank you very much Samtso for paying heed about repairing our village prayer hall. We are the village leaders; we will support this project until it is complete. Today, on the evening of October 23^rd 2009, you, Samtso, brought 80% (27,308RMB) in project funds out of 34,135 RMB with a explanation letter about keeping 20% of the project funds.  

 We are representing Fudi Village to guarantee that Fudi Village will contribute 40, 000 RMB and the labor. Just in case, if this project cost more than the donor contribution of 34,135RMB + the local contribution of 40,000RMB, we, Fudi Village, will contribute as much cash or labor as needed for  implementing this project, since Samtso put down all of her own things to manage this project and make it a priority.  It is already really remarkable. This is not only repairing a prayer hall, this is a start of educating many other people, young, old, male, and female, to have the compassionate mind in one way and to encourage and lead us, the villagers, to be familiar with doing projects in this modern area. Both of us will be a part of the project committee to keep close attention and to complete this project.”

Ama Lhadey

She is 75 years old. She raises her son by herself year-around because the boy’s parents their aged granny and crawling baby 5 years ago for an “enjoyable” life in a city.

I am sincerely grateful for erecting the grand prayer hall of the village. At this stage of my life now, it is the time to count beads and chant some prayers around the prayer hall. However, it is unfortunate that I cannot squeeze any spare time in my tight daily routine to visit the prayer hall.  The hardest thing for me is to help with the labor required to rebuild the temple. I am the only one who works both inside the home and outside. If I join the village temple rebuilding, I cannot finish any chores at home. Especially, in the evening, my only grandson comes home with empty tummy from 3 kilometers away at school; I have no time to serve him dinner. My perception is if Samtso or any other people who can sponsor my great son until college, then I could die peacefully.

Sangji Jya  

“Our village, Fudi Village, has had many great people. We have highly passionate official workers, rich business people, and young college students. However, so far, only Samtso has helped us. Samtso is not someone who is a millionaire, or sky-scraping passion in government,  and many people in our village have much more profound knowledge than her. She is extraordinary due to her kind, obliging heart and always thinking about others.

All of us easily out of burst by small things. We are living in the same village; we need each other regardless of happiness or sadness. No matter what, for our betterness, we need to cooperate and support this project. Implementing a project is not only completing the project, but to protect the project after finishing it. Like the milk churn and the solar cooker project that have been completed in our village, we need to be responsible all year around.

Thank you, Samtso, for having a helpful thought, although you went away to get higher education, you continue to be concerned with our village people’s living condition. You fight for the poverty that we have faced.”

Drolma Kyi, Gartey and Tsedar

“With great donor funds and the generous village contribution both in cash and labor

, the village temple has been completed. Now all of us can come to the prayer hall pray, chant and share various topics, such as which family has bought some livestock, which family has prepared a wedding for their children… lots of village stuff. The prayer hall will not only give us a gathering space to practice our deep down beliefs, but also provides a great time for aged people to chat and breath the fresh air and relax. Not like the city people, whose whole day is spent caged inside a house. Our years of accumulated positive Kharma have let us have a leisure community in front of

the prayer hall to talk, laugh and pray freely.”

Additional information for the secondary managers:

They are Sunam and Sulba, the village leaders of Fudi Village from 2009-2010 and two of the secondary project managers as well.

This is Aka Jumay (right) and Aka Ludi Xinba (left), two of the monk project managers, who have lots of experiences managing building temples and prayer halls

in Labrang monastery.

Geritso, one of the local female project managers, who is the women’s federal representative in Fudi Village as well.

Yangmo is another local female project manager.

Sangji Dundurb (left) and Zhoutarjar (Right). They are the two of the adviors of Fudi Village activities. They take responsibilities to manage the project as well. 

Receipts

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Original Proposal

Project location
The project is located in Fudi Village, in the east of Xiahe County (historically known as Lhabrang), Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China. Xiahe is 278 kilometers from Lanzhou, the provincial capital, and 290 kilometers from Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province.

Population
There are 45 households and 500 people in Fudi village. About half of Fudi’s residents are middle-aged people, 40-60 years old, 30 % are young people 1-39 years old, and 20 % are old people 61-93 years old. There are 218 men, 226 women, and 56 school children aged 1- 17 years old in Fudi. All of the residents of Fudi village are Tibetan.

Cash income
The average family in Fudi makes 1,500 RMB per year before. After the village prayer temple will be completed , each of the family can save 2400rmb from riding taxies Half of their income is used to buy basic needs like salt and onions, and the other half of the money is spent at the end of the year to buy some simple New Year’s purchases. At the end of the year, most families have no extra money. There are 18 single female -headed families and 12 childless elder couples in Fudi village. These single mother families and childless elder couples are poor compared to the two-parent families. These families will directly benefit from the project.

There are several ways that Fudi villagers earn money.

Most men earn money by carrying sand and stones from the village to the townspeople in mini trucks. Each full truck bed earns 50 RMB. The village men can carry a maximum of three full truck beds (150 RMB worth) per day, as it is10 km from Fudi to Lhabrang township. This is a very good salary, but the trucking work cannot be done everyday because sand and stones are not in very high demand. The village men also sell two or three sheep when a family is desperate for money to buy medicine; here I mean in an emergency situation that we have to sell our livestock like to buy medicine. Usually we don’t sell the sheep if we are not in great need of money. One sheep can be sold for around 200 RMB. However, the animal trade can only be done for two months each year, during the fall. During other seasons, the animals are too thin to sell. Most women make money by selling yak dung. Each bag of yak dung costs 2 RMB, and 20 bags in a small truck can earn 40 RMB. Only in the winter time we sell yak dung. Women can also sell milk and yogurt for 5 RMB per 5-liter bottle. Doing this, they can earn about 30 RMB per week. During harvest time, other villages hire Fudi village women to harvest. A woman can earn 15 RMB from a whole day of hard labor. The money from the sale of milk is kept by the women while the money from the sale of livestock is kept by men.

Agriculture
Most of the Fudi villagers earn their living off of both agriculture and herding. Each family has between 5 and 10 mu of farmland. Fudi villagers only grow barley because the high elevation makes it impossible to grow other crops. This means they have to buy all of their vegetables from outside. Every year, the average family can produce 45 kilograms of barley. This is not enough for self-consumption, forcing the purchase of additional barley from the outside for the families to eat. There is never enough barley harvested to sell.

The farmlands are located on a hill and have no irrigation, leaving a great dependence of the rain.

Herding
The average family in Fudi has 150 sheep, 3 cows, and 3 milking yaks. The only income that people make from herding is that which the women make selling milk, cheese, and yogurt. If there is an emergency, such as a family member becoming injured, a sheep or a yak will be sold to provide money for treatment.

Education
Most Fudi villagers are illiterate. Out of 500 villagers, 50 people have a primary school education, 15 people have a middle school education, and 7 have a college education. In addition to being illiterate, most villagers cannot speak Chinese. As a result, villagers are faced with many difficulties such as an inability to do many kinds of trade with others, and to get jobs outside of the village. Currently in Fudi village, out of 56 school-aged children, only 39 attend school. 20 pupils (11 are female and 9 are male) are attending primary school, 13 (8 are male 5 are female) students are attending middle school and 4( 1 female 3male) are attending college now.
Taxes
Before 2005, each person in Fudi village had to pay 100 RMB plus 10 RMB per livestock to the local government. The average family had to pay 2000 RMB per year. After 2005, the government revoked all the taxes and there are no current taxes.

Weather
The weather in Xiahe County is usually cold. In Fudi village， there is no clear distinction between spring, winter, summer and autumn. Most months are winter. From June to August the weather is a little bit hot, but after that people have to wear their sheepskin robes all the time for warm. The cold weather makes it impossible to grow anything other than barley. Therefore, the villagers have to spend a lot of money buying other crops like rapeseed, wheat, and other vegetables, including onions. Average temperature is 22 degrees in the summer and, below 8 degree in the winter.

Project Goals and Benefits

The overall goal of this project is to preserve the cultural traditions of Fudi Village.
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 32 prayer wheels, repair the leaking roof of the village temple and make the path around the prayer hall wider in Fudi Village.
Problems

1. The cultural and religious center of Fudi Village is in great danger of disappearing. This cultural center consists of one main prayer hall, with more than 250 years of history. People gather here many times a year to carry out religious rituals and discuss important events. People also gather here to pray for good harvests, happiness, and peace. Most of the village women (squeeze some) find time to come to the prayer hall every afternoon to circumambulate and pray at the wheel. Even on the most important religious days, all women come to this prayer hall and read scriptures, unlike village men who ride their bicycles and motorcycles to Labrang Monastery to pray. Right now there is only one prayer wheel in this village prayer hall, so it is not enough for all the women and men to pray every afternoon. It is always very crowded and sometimes creates conflict. This is the main spot that the village people can get the diverse news which is happening outside of the village.

2. The prayer hall roof is leaking and allowing all kinds of bird to come and go. Due to rain damage, cracks are beginning to show in the temple. The Buddha statues and old Tangkas are also in danger of being exposed to the elements due to the weathering of the building. In addition, the building’s dilapidated condition makes it dangerous for use by elders and pilgrims.

3. The walls around the prayer hall are in terrible condition. They were made out of dirt and are falling down.

4. The narrow clay path around the prayer hall is eroding and falling away, making it difficult for people to travel back and forth safely.

5. Fudi Village has no public money to rebuild the prayer hall. Luckily, last year Fudi villagers loaned their spring grassland to another village. This generated 20,000 RMB in total. 10,000 RMB of this have already been spent on the religious rituals held each year.

6. It is difficult to collect the rebuilding money from the villagers because they have such a small cash income each year.

7. In Fudi Village all the people over 50 years old gather together around the prayer hall to circumambulate. Right now in the temple there is only one prayer wheel and some clay figures. Women in the village don’t know how to ride bicycles and motorcycles, and cannot afford to take a taxi to go to Labrang Monastery to circumambulate. As being Tibetans and according to the custom, all the villager in Fudi Village should go to circumambulate Labrang Monastery to accumulate good deeds for the next life, we don’t have a safe built prayer hall to be circumambulate. In this case women are the one who needs to take the public buses or taxis all the time to go to Labrang Monastery.

Solution
1. Repair the collapsing prayer hall walls with bricks to make it stable.

2. Expand the path around the prayer hall to prevent elders and people who are circumambulating the prayer hall from getting injured
3. Repair the leaking roof to prevent the Buddha statues and scriptures inside from getting damaged by rain and birds.

4. Buy 32 small prayer wheels for around the prayer hall to let all village people circumambulate.

These four solutions will allow villagers to circumambulate around a nice, safe prayer hall with many prayer wheels.

Benefits
1. Fudi Village women will have a place to relax after finishing their jungle chores. All village people will have a place to carry on religious rituals and safely keep the valuable Buddha images, continuing their customs. A restored prayer hall will also provide a space for everyone to gather together to solve problems and pray.

2. Elders and women can circumambulate the prayer hall with many prayer wheels without worrying about getting injured by the collapsing walls of the prayer hall.

3. Per family can save 2400 RMB from this project per year. If the project is completed, then all the elders and women will not need to pay the taxies go to Labrang Monastery to circumambulate. Because this is a center of the religious place each month, there are currently more than 10 days per month all villagers go to Labrang Monastery to circumambulate. By taxi the roundtrip costs 20 yuan one day, 200 per month and 2400 per year. With a restored prayer hall, villagers can stay in Fudi to pray.

4. The restored prayer hall will increase the feelings of togetherness for the villagers.
5. Restorations will preserve this cultural spot for future generations, so all the traditional customs and rituals may carry on.

Interviews

LhaTai

She is a sixty five years old woman in Fudi Village. She says: “This temple is the only place that most village women (including myself) can escape the endless housework to relax a bit and freely talk about everything we want to. Since 1950, I have been circumambulating the temple. As I have a poor health condition and cannot go far away from the village, my family let me stay at home to feed the pigs and sheep. This means that the temple is the only information source that I have and the only holy place that I have ever seen in my life. Right now the temple is partially falling down and all the statues are damaged. I cannot imagine that one day this temple may disappear, giving people like me no outlet for information or prayer. For ourselves and the future generations, the temple should be rebuilt. This will allow the inner communication to get strong and women to have some leisure time to be together to talk and pray.”

Wanma Dongdrob

He is the Fudi Village leader. He says: “We had the plan to rebuild the temple almost five years ago. We couldn’t make the plan happen because our village doesn’t have any public money like other villages do from selling the expensive plants (Caterpillar Fungus or the special mushrooms). Luckily, last year we loaned our spring grassland to another village, so we generated a little money. Unfortunately, this amount of money is too little to rebuild the temple. To rebuild independently, we have to collect at least 2,000 RMB from each family. This is a big burden on all of us. We cannot give this money to rebuild the temple, but the temple should be rebuilt. Old people, especially women are always around the temple because they cannot ride motorcycles to go to the city monastery to circumambulate. If the temple is rebuilt, it will bring a lot of convenience for women and old people the village culture will be preserved.”
Gender equality
This project will help empower local women by giving them direct benefit from it. This project will generally help all the villagers, especially increasing convenience for all the women who cannot ride bicycles and motorcycles to go to the distant Labrang monastery. Secondly, all the women will participate in all levels of project implementation, including collecting local contributions and providing unskilled labor alongside local men during construction. This is a big project and its’ implementation will hopefully cause local people to think about females in a different way, reducing some of their old prejudices against females.
In addition, this project is managed by an educated local woman, so its successful completion will change villagers’ perceptions of women’s capabilities.

Governmental support
The manager of this project already has done several small- scale development projects in this area, and the government leaders are very supportive, giving her full permission to go forward with this project. Leaders encourage the project because it will improve the terrible prayer hall conditions. I have done more than 5proffetional small scaled project, so the county leader Namka gave me his full permission already.

The steps of the project

Get ideas from local people and gather information of their condition and project by holding some meetings. The project manager has chosen 3 people to form a local project committee to be responsible for the sustainability. (Already happened)

1.Hold a meeting with the village leaders to make the basic budget for the project. (Already completed)
2.Hold a meeting with the village leaders to list the basic materials needed for rebuilding the prayer hall. (Already completed)

3. Hold a meeting to measure how many meters the width and height of the prayer hall should be expanded. (Already completed)

4. Hold a meeting with the village leaders and the engineer. (Already completed) The main content was about where the materials will be purchased: Cement in the County Cement Company in Xiahe County; Red bricks and cinder blocks in the County Tile Factory in Xiahe County. Etc.

5. Secure funding from donor organization.

6. Collect the local contribution from the villagers.

7.Local people begin to collect the stones, sand, and earth from 13 km away near the village winter pasture.
8. Buy building materials from Xiahe County. Go together with the village leaders and the engineer in order to ensure the quality of the materials.

9. Buy 32 prayer wheels.

10. Build the prayer hall.

11.Evaluate the prayer hall.
12. Take pictures.

13. Interview the local people (men, women, and children)

14. Interview the village leaders.

15. Write final report.

16. Send final report with pictures and receipts to donors.

Timeframe

Time line: From the time that the project is approved, this project will take approximately 88 days.
1 day: Hold a village meeting to announce the rules that villagers should follow and ensure their readiness to work until the prayer hall is complete.

10 days: To knock down the old, narrow path and the broken walls around the prayer hall.

15 days: To transport 150 tracks of stones from the village winter pasture.

15 days: To transport 50 tracks of earth and 50 tracks of sand from our winter pasture.

5 days: To transport a big track of the wood to build the prayer hall from Hezuo, the capital city in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
10 days: Purchase 32 prayer wheels, tile, red bricks, and cement. Transport materials from Xining City.
1 day: Purchase small materials and transport from our county town, Xiahe County.
30 days: Build the barrier wall.
1 day: Hold a second village meeting to clarify responsibilities of prayer hall committee and announce completion of project.

Detailed Budget

Sustainability

This project is very sustainable, because the Fudi Village will pay for maintenance of the prayer hall after the project is completed. Also, the contractor is using very good quality materials so that the payer hall will remain in excellent condition for more than fifty years.

Additional information:

Previous projects completed by Samtsogye:

Samtsogye has successfully completed 7 small-scale development projects in Lhabrang County. In 2002, 2003, and 2004, she completed three second-hand clothing projects organized by Sue Bishop at the British Consulate in Shanghai. In total, she distributed second-hand clothing to over 200 people. In 2005, she implemented a solar cooker project supported by the Canada fund, bringing 45 solar cookers to the monks of Lhabrang Monastery who did not have any family support or source of food and fuel. Most recently, in March of 2006, a private donor provided support for Samtsogye to distribute 14 solar cookers to the Nuns of Tawa Gongma Nunnery.

In 2006, she implemented an Aluminum Milk Churn project for the two poorest nomadic villages in the area increasing the families living condition, income, and reducing their labor, thereby increasing girl’s school attendance and women and girl’s overall quality of life. This project was funded by the Shambala Connection.

 In January 2007, Samtsogye did a cultural preservation project for the Nuns of Tawa Gongma Nunnery. In October 2007, Samtsogye did a second hand clothing project for Fudi Village.

Photos:

The village women are pulling the prayer wheel and worrying about the poor condition of the prayer hall. 

The village men are discussing the details of how to rebuild the prayer hall and where they should buy the good quality and inexpensive materials.

 
The front wall of the prayer hall is falling apart.

The back wall of the prayer hall.

The right side wall of the prayer hall.

The roof of the prayer hall has almost become a bush because if people try to go there and cut the grass, they will break the roof.

The village leaders are holding meeting. 

The map of the proposal location

To strengthen Tibetan culture and teach younger generations about religion; strengthen community ties, provide a place for lay people and practitioners to worship and conduct rituals and practices, encourage daily exercise, and raise morale.

Shem’s private donors funded this project.

Padmatso is from Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China. She graduated in 2005 with an associated degree in English from Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department’s English Training Program. Since her graduation, she worked as an English teacher at several primary schools at her hometown. Now she is an English teacher at Zhuoni Tibetan Middle School.

What? To rebuild a temple for Xialadi Village(Strengthen Tibetan culture and teach younger generations about religion, Strengthen community ties, provide a place for lay people and practitioners to worship and conduct rituals and practices, encourage daily exercise, Raise morale.)

Who?  Xiladi Villagers in Qiagai Township, Zhuoni County, Gannan Tibet Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province

Photos of project implementation

The finished building of the temple without manufacturing inside of the temple and paint

The villagers and workers are making the wall

The villagers are helping the workers to build the rooms

In front of the temple


Inside of the temple, we will put many structures, such as stupa , Buddha statues and scripture books there.

On these walls, we will paint religious paintings

The kitchen room that built as the part of the local contribution

The finished building of the temple from side scene

Project Summary

Project Title: Cultural Preservation for Xialadi Village.

The project location: This project took place in Xialadi Tibetan Village. Xialadi is located 30 kilometers from Qiagai Township Seat, in Zhuoni County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, and China.

Project goals: The project goal is to strengthen Tibetan culture and teach younger generations about religion; strengthen community ties, provide a place for lay people and practitioners to worship and conduct rituals and practices, encourage daily exercise, and raise morale.

Total beneficiaries
This project benefit a total of 336 people, including 200 Xialadi villagers and 136 Tibetan villagers from the next valley. It also benefit many young generations of Xialadi village.

Implementation organization/individual
Padmatso (Bethany), three village managers: Samdan, Dorjicairang, Hongjie, and Shem Women’s Group.

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Source, Amount, and Date Received
On March 26^th 2007, Shem Women’s Group has distributed 71,992rmb to the project manager Padmatso (Bethany).

Details of the project activities
1. The project manager had a meeting with the villagers and chose three villagers as project committees.
2. March 21.2007; we received 71,992 Rmb from Shem Women’s Group.
3. March 23rd; the project manager went back to the village and held a meeting with the three village managers and discussed about the plans for the    next.
4. The project manager and three other villagers designed the project
5. Some elder people from the village get together at the place where the temple would be built and share suggestions for rebuilding this temple.
6. Local people invited the lama from Qiagai monastery and to bless the place where the temple would be built.
7. April 17th, the local people started to work, gathering the stones and sand.
8. April 20th, local people hired a big earth-scraper to flat the.
9. June 14th, three village committees visited the person who is responsible for the forest at my hometown and asked for the permission to cut some trees for first time.
10. June 21^rst; the project manager and the three village committees went to visit the man (who is responsible for the forest) again.
11. July 28^th; we got the permission from the government to cut 267 wooden pillars for twenty days.
12.  Aug 15th; local people went to the forest which is 25 kilometers away from the village and started to cut the trees.
13.  Sept 28th; The leader (who is responsible for the forest) checked and counted the wood.
14.  Oct 13th; we paid the management fee for the government and villagers started to transport the wooden pillars to village.
15.  Dec 25^th, we got all the pillars to the village.
16.  March 23, 2008. Asked the experienced engineer and skilled workers from near township as we planned before.
17.  April 9th: signed a contract between the engineer and the village committee which guarantees that the temple would be of superior quality,
18.  April 27th: the engineers and workers started to build the temple.
19.  July 12th: the workers finished the building of the temple.
20.  We haven’t got enough pillars, also we need many boards to manufacture the inside, and so we bought from many places and got permission from the government for transport for five months.
21.  Apr 8th, 2009: We asked skilled workers to manufacture the inside of the temple for two month.
22.  June 12, finished the manufacture the inside of the temple.
23.  Now, the villagers asked the painters to paint and it cost them 25,000rmb as local contribution, because we haven’t got anymore money left.
24.  July11th wrote the final report.

Problems encountered in the course of the project implementation.
1. Cold weather
When we got the money, it was in March and the earth was still a little frozen and it was very difficult to dig.
2.  Heavy rains during the construction
during the construction it rained a lot and caused problems when the local people transporting the materials and gathering the stones and sand. Also made it difficult when the villagers cut the trees.
3. Problems for getting the permission from government for cutting the trees
As the recent rule of the government, we can’t cut the trees at all. Therefore, we couldn’t find the wood to buy with reasonable price and it was very expensive to buy them. Also it was very difficult to transport if we bought the wood from far away, because the government would check and it was not allowed to transport. So we used long time to ask for the permission. (It has been the most difficult problem that we met; also the price went up very high.)
4. Fluctuating cost of the materials
During this construction, we got the problems for buying the materials, because the prices went up and down. Especially, the wood and pay for the workers. Before, we could buy a longer wooden pillar for 145rmb, but now it cost 203rmb. We can pay 40rmb for a skilled worker for one day, but now it paid 70rmb for one day.

Solutions
During this project, all the villagers tried their best to work and help each other to implement the project. They gave many excellent suggestions, for example, we built two more rooms and outside wall as the part of the local contribution. Also when we met the problems for the number of the materials, the local people used the transportation fee to buy more and transported them by themselves even some families don’t have the tractors, they hired other’s and transport the materials as the leaders planned.
For cutting the trees, local people visited the leader who was responsible for the forest of my hometown many times and used many ways to convince the leader to give permission. All the men from the village stayed at the forest for twenty days to cut the trees without any payment. Also they transported all the wooden pillars to the village by themselves. Therefore, we only paid 2000rmb instead of paying almost 30,000. Because we cut 267wooden pillars and in that time we would pay one at least 150rmb.Furthermore, we bought many boards and villagers transported them to the village.
From all these activities, we could see the local people’s purest hearts and how they are eager to have a temple in this village. Also we could see that villagers are very unite and hard working.

Interviews
During the Lonar New Year, Padmasto went back home and by the way she interviewed some elder people from the village. They were very happy to see the temple nearly finished and dying to have time to circumambulate the temple. Also they could practice in this temple and they can have enjoyable life in the future. Below are the people that Padmatso interviewed.
Samdan
A 65 year old male practitioner and one of the project committees, he said “It is very pleasant to see the temple nearly rebuilt. First, I would represent all the villagers to say thanks lots for the Shem Women’s Group. Because without their help we still couldn’t rebuild the temple even the villagers hope to. This temple would not only offer a place to do daily rituals, also serves as daily exercise for everyone, especially, for the elder people.”
Sonamkyi
A 78year-old female practitioner (the oldest practitioner at the village) she said: “Since the last temple was destroyed, every villager has eager to rebuild the temple, but we couldn’t do it until now. Now with Shem Women’s Group’s help we started to build the temple. I am very lucky that I can see the repaired temple and could circumambulate it. It will restore the village’s “heart” and raise the villagers’ spirits.”
Gazang tshz
A 67-year-old woman she said: “I am a blind woman and I stayed at home everyday to practice the Buddhism. Now my wish became true that we have a temple in our village and I could go out to the temple to practice the Buddhism or circumambulate it with other companions. I would no more stay at home and feel lonely.”

General conclusion on the realization of the project aims so far;
During this construction, we got many problems, such as heavy rains, long time for getting the permission for cutting the trees and so on, but the project has been finishing very successfully by the local people’s support and village committees’ hard work.
This project brings the heart and spirits to the village again, also it provides essential place to all the practitioners to practice the Dharma in this temple. The villagers could have religious rituals any time without worry that place is too small when they have at someone’s family.

Changes made in the original project proposal and budget:
A: Two rooms
In the original proposal, we didn’t plan to build these two rooms, but as the villagers’ suggestion we planed to build these two rooms; one is for the kitchen that we could cook the food when we hold big religious activities. So far, we took turns to hold the activities in each family, but some families are very small and got difficulties when all the villagers get together in one family, The other is for the temple keeper, we would take turns to responsible for the temple each year. So it is very convenient for the people to look after the temple very well. Therefore, we decided to build these two rooms as a part of the local contribution.
B: Outside wall of the temple
In the original proposal, we didn’t plan to make an outside wall for the temple. During this construction, we got that we need an outside wall, because each family has livestock in the family and they would go near the temple anytime, especially, the pigs. They would excrete everywhere and it would make the temple dirty, also the pigs would destroy the yard. So that, we planned to make a wall in order to keep the temple more clean and safe. We made it as another part of the local contribution.
C. Transportation
originally, we planned to have the local people to only transport the stones, but during the project we had problems with the numbers of the materials, such as bricks, tiles, cement and so on. We needed more than the original number, because the bad road to the village caused many of them had broken, also when the workers use them, they had broken some of them. So the local people needed to buy more than planed and transported all the materials by themselves as the part of the local contribution.
D. Paintings
We planned to paint the temple and that would pay by donor, but as the things passing we got no money to pay for it. So the committees hold a meeting with villagers and decided that they will pay for it as a local contribution.

Project finance

Note#1    
Formerly we planed to buy 140bags of cement, but during the project implementation we designed the place a little bigger than before, as so we needed more cement and the cost became higher than before, so we asked the locals to pay the transportation fee.
Note#2
We planed to buy 100 ton sand( tiny sand 细沙and rough sand粗沙), but we spent more money on cement and the villagers decided to collect the rough sand by themselves and pay the transportation as local contribution.
Note#3
The workers’ payment included the skilled stone workers and skilled workers total for 26,480rmb before, now we paid 19,500rmb for just building up the temple and we have to pay 16,968rmb for the manufacture of inside the temple. Because of the money that running out of, so we only paid 1,968rmb and local people paid 15,000 as a contribution.
Note#4
During the implementation we needed more bricks (4,124) than we planed (17,776) and the price became higher, especially the transportation, because of the lot rain and bad road. So we paid the bricks from donor and paid the transportation as the local contribution.
Note#5
Before we planed to buy 3,000tiles, but as the villagers and workers’ advice we planed to buy another kind of tile (琉璃瓦) instead.
Note#6
We have 21,460rmb for the148 wooden pillars, but in actual we needed more and the price was became very high, because of the government rules that we can’t cut the trees nowadays. The wood became very hard to get and our money is not enough, so that we used many ways to request the government (the leader of the forest keeper) to give permission. At the end we paid 2,000rmb for the management fee and we cut the 267wooden pillars by the villagers. We still need to buy more wooden boards to manufacture the inside of the temple and we bought many boards that cost 28,124.2rmb.
Note#7
We have not included these stuffs in the original budget but during the implementation we needed all these things. For example, receipts from22-33 the workers used during the implementation. Receipt 34-36, we used for celebrating the finishing building of the temple, it is maybe a culture that we have to give some money to the workers.

Thanks Letter

Translation

Dear Shem Women’s Group,

I would like to represent all the villagers to say thank you to all the members of the Shem Women’s Group very much. With your kind help, we have rebuilt the temple very successfully as we wished to have it for long time. We all bless you to have more successful future without any illness and use your kindness to help more people.

Tashi Delek
The villagers of Xialadi
June 15^th, 2009

Receipts

Receipt1

Cement 4.5ton+transportation for the cement and it was 2,090rmb

Receipt 2

Cement 100bags+transportation fee=2,200rmb

Reciept3

Cement6bags+transportation fee=168 rmb.

Receipt4

30stucks of sand it is 2,500rmb

 Receipt 5

The payment 19,500rmb for the workers.

Receipt6

We have to pay 16,968rmb formfitting up inside of the temple, but we haven’t got more money and we only paid 1,968rmb and local people paid rest 15,000rmb.

Receipt7

Receipt 8

Receipt 9

Above receipts are the costs for brick, in total it costs 6,060rm

Receipt10

The cost for tile is 4,000rmb in total.

Receipt 11

Receipt 12

Reciept13

Reciept14

Reciept15

Reciept16

Reciept17

Reciept18

Reciept19

Reciept20

Reciept21

(Receipts 11-21 receipts are the costs for the wooden pillars, boards and the manufacture of the pillars and boards, we paid 31,734.2rmb in total from donor contribution)

Reciept22

Receipt 23

Reciept24

Reciept25

Reciept26

Reciept27

Reciept28

Reciept29

Reciept30

Reciept31

Reciept32

Reciept33

Reciept34

Reciept35

Reciept36

Receipts from 22-36 are costs for other materials, and we spent 1,972.43rmb from donor contribution)

Original proposal
Where is the project located?
This project will take place in Xialadi Tibetan Village. Xialadi is located 30 kilometers from Qiagai Township Seat, in Zhuoni County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China.

Population
Xialadi Village has 20 households and 180 villagers. The population of Xialadi Village is 176. There are 76 men, 64 women, and 36 children. All residents are Tibetan.

Income
In the winter of 2000, Zhuoni County designated Xialadi Village as the poorest village in Qiagai Township, a group of 26 distinct villages. The average disposable cash income of a Xialadi villager is around 150rmb per year. The villagers are nomadic herders; they earn money by selling butter and cheese. A typical family can make 150 rmb per year selling cheese and 480 rmb per year selling butter. They sell these to the businessman in Qiagai Township seat.

In addition, villagers make money by selling livestock such as yaks and sheep. In the space of two years, each family sells one or two yaks for about 1200rmb each.

Finally, some of the Xialadi villagers also take jobs as low-skilled road workers. Due to the demands of herding, they can only work for two months per year: April and May. They usually work building roads for around 10 hours a day for a salary of 15 rmb per day.

Taxes
Each family must remit 200 jin of milk per year in taxes. This fee is charged regardless of herd size, and some families must buy milk in order to pay the milk tax. In addition, villagers must pay 5 rmb per yak per year. A typical family with a herd of 30 yaks must pay 150 rmb per year plus milk tax. If the villagers are unable to pay their taxes the local government will take some of their livestock as payment.

Agriculture
In all of Qiagai Township, it is very difficult to grow most crops . Because of the high elevation and bad weather, the villagers are limited to growing small amounts of barley and beans for self-consumption. The largest family has 7 mu of land. With this land, they can produce 100 jin of barley or beans per year. The land is allotted according to the number of family members. Families with fewer members have less land. Land is also allotted according to age: those born before 1981 are allotted 1 mu of land each, while those born after are allotted no land.

Xialadi’s fie lds are not irrigated. To water their fields, the village women must hand- carry buckets of water from a stream that is 2 km away from the village. Since 1999, the barley crops in Xialadi village have been affected by disease. The villagers have attempted to remedy this situation with pesticides and preventative chemicals, but these often kill the crops and make the fields barren.

As a result of the above problems, most Xialadi villagers cannot produce enough barley for self-consumption, and thus must buy barley flour and beans from the stores in the nearby township.

Health Care
There is no health clinic in Xialadi Village. When people get sick they must go to Qiagai Township, which is 30 kilometers away. It takes four hours to get to the township by horse or yak. Most people go there on foot, which takes five hours. There is no car in Xialadi Village and it is unsafe for the seriously ill patients to travel by motorcycle to the clinic. The road from Xialadi to Qiagai is a very rough, dirt road and thus very dangerous to travel on by motorcycle. The yak is a slow but more suitable transportation because it walks smoothly .

In the past 10 years, 5 people have died on the way to the hospital. There is no mid-wife in Xialadi Village, so when women give birth they must go to the clinic. Miscarriage is very common, because of the long distance. If the villagers have more serious illnesses, they have to go to Zhuoni County Town. Before the patients enter the hospital they have to pay a two or three thousand rmb deposit to the hospital, o therwise the doctors won’t treat them. Upon arrival at the Zhoni County hospital, some villagers have been turned away because of their poverty-stricken appearance.

Education
There is one Tibetan primary school in Xialadi Village. The school has three grades and only 11 stud e nts: 4 girls and 7 boys. There are 20 school-aged children in the village, but many do no attend the school b ecause their parents want them to herd livestock. The primary school is in very poor condition: it consists of two small rooms, a classroom and a teacher’s apartment. The school’s roof is in disrepair. During the rainy season, the roof leaks and makes it difficult to hold class.

There is only one teacher in the school for three classes. It is very hard for the students pay attention to their classes, because classes are held while all of the students are together in the classroom. The school only has 8 desks, which the students must share between them. The re are five people from Xialadi Village who have graduated from high or normal (teacher training) school.

Herding
Xialadi Villagers face a number of problems with regard to herding:

1. The village has a very limited amount of grassland . Xialadi’s villagers have had conflicts with the neighboring village over grazing rights. In 1995, this conflict escalated into violent fighting, that lasted for two months. Fortunately, no one was killed during this quarrel, but the villagers still have problems with grazing rights. Before the villagers could herd their livestock freely, but now the neighboring village doesn’t let Xialadi Village’s livestock grass onto their grassland. If Xialadi’s livestock cross the neighboring village’s boundary, then they kill the yaks. So the fighting has curtailed the Xialadi villagers’ ability to herd.

2. During winter when t he temperature drops to 15 below zero with a 7-inch snowfall, some livestock starve to death. This is especially the case for calves and lambs .

3. For the past ten years, two diseases have decreased the number of the livestock. Every winter, each herd loses two to three animals to a small white parasite that attack the animals’ backsides. In the spring, a disease called Kutiyi infects the animal’s mouths and kills 2-3 yaks and around 10 sheep per year.

Project Goals and benefits

The overarching goal of this project is to preserve and promote traditional Tibetan culture and religion.

The immediate goal of this project is to re-build Xialadi Village’s Tibetan Buddhist temple.

Background
Xailadi’s original Buddhist temple was built in 1901. Each day, the temple hosted about 50 worshippers. The temple served as a crucial place of worship for the village’s many Tibetan Buddhist practitioners, the majority of whom are women. Xialadi village is home to many women practitioners who have chosen to dedicate their lives to the study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism. The nearest nunnery to Xialadi Village is located in Labrang, which is more than 200 kilometers away. Because Labrang’s nunnery is so far away from Xialadi, becoming a nun is not a viable option for the village’s devout women. Thus, these women’s main means of practicing their faith was to worship at the Xialadi Tibetan Buddhist temple.

In addition to serving as a place of worship, the original temple was the main community-gathering place. Villagers went to the temple to meet with others, circumambulate, pray, and talk. The temple was the village’s central building and the most popular meeting place.

In 1958, the village temple was completely destroyed.

In the1980’s the people of Xialadi village were given permission to rebuild their temple and resume religious worship. Unfortunately, however, the villagers have not had the financial means to rebuild it. Today, the only evidence that remains of this once fundamental community center is a single, small deity figure that was saved from the destruction by one of the village’s female practitioners (see photo). Having no temple has caused several problems for the villagers:

Drolmatso holding the only remnant of the original temple

Loss of culture
Because Tibetan Buddhism is an integral part of Tibetan culture, the original Buddhist temple of Xialadi village was a fundamentally important cultural monument. “Culture” consists of the language, beliefs, values, norms, and behaviors of a group of people. It also includes the material objects that are passed from one generation to next. Xialadi’s temple was a monument whose existence necessitated the practice of various parts of Tibetan culture–especially the exercise of beliefs, and the following of religious norms. The temple itself was also a part of Tibetan culture, an object that was enjoyed and used by generations of Xialadi villagers. Thus the loss of the village temple has meant a basic loss of culture for the Xialadi villagers.

In rapidly modernizing China, cultural leveling is a real threat to the traditional Tibetan way of life. When an ethnic group experiences cultural leveling, they cease to be distinct from the dominant ethnic group. Cultural leveling poses a particularly urgent threat to Xialadi village, because it is the only Tibetan village in a valley shared by four Han Chinese Villages and a Han Chinese-run gold mine.

One example of the threat to traditional Tibetan culture is evident in the disappearance of the village’s bi-annual horse racing festivals. Previously, these races were held in the summer and during the New Year. Due to the switch from horses to motorcycles as the main mode of transportation, many villagers no longer raise horses, and thus horse racing has become obsolete. Whereas New Year celebrations in the past involved families gathering to watch the races, sing, and dance, New Year celebrations today involve motorcycle racing and are only attended by young men.

Also, the language that the villagers use is changing. Previously, all of the villagers used Tibetan to communicate, and very few Chinese words could be heard in their speech. Since the arrival of the Chinese gold mine ten years ago, and the subsequent arrival of televisions in the village’s homes–the younger generation of villagers uses more and more Chinese words in their daily speech. In addition, the village’s children pick up Chinese words from the TV and use them in daily life.

Loss of culture in younger generation
Today, Xialadi’s young people don’t know much about Tibetan Buddhism because there is no place to practice. This means that the youth of Xialadi village are largely ignorant about a fundamental part of Tibetan culture. Culture is learned as children grow up in a society and discover how their parents and other people around them view the world. Because there is no temple in Xialadi, the village children have not learned some basic religious norms. For example, some of the village children don’t know how to circumambulate the temple when they visit other monasteries. They sometimes circumambulate counterclockwise because they have never learned how Gelugpa Buddhists circumambulate.

Loosening of community ties
Nowadays, because the village has no community center, people stay at home to watch TV when they have free time. Because the villagers do not meet with each other on a regular basis, they do not know each other very well, and many families keep to themselves.

No access to a monastery
Many Tibetan villages do not have their own temples, but they usually have a nearby temple or monastery where they go to worship. Xialadi village does not have a nearby temple. Qia Gai monastery, the nearest temple, which is located in Qiagai Township, is 30 kilometers away from the village. In order to get to this temple, Xailadi villagers must walk 4-5 hours on foot. Because of the journey to the temple is such a long one, the villagers cannot make it very often. The distance to Qia Gai monastery also makes it especially difficult for the poor villagers to hold any rituals, because when the villagers invite the monks to their home to do rituals, they must hire a car or truck (the monks won’t travel by motorcycle because they thinks its too dangerous).

Difficulty in practicing religion
The village is home to around 55 Buddhist practitioners, for whom the temple is a very essential building. Some of these particularly devout practitioners live together, and their lives are focused around chanting and conducting Buddhist prayer rituals. Without a village temple, these practitioners cannot properly perform these Buddhist rituals and practices. In addition, the vast majority of Xialadi villagers believes in Buddhism and follows certain norms related to its practice. The loss of Xialadi village’s temple has made it difficult for both the laypeople and the practitioners to practice their religion. Because there is no temple in which to worship, practitioners must conduct their religious rituals and practices in their homes, which are inadequate (see photo). Many of the devout women and men of Xialadi have built small prayer shrines in their homes in which to prostrate and chant, but these rooms are usually too small to make full body prostrations and thus the practitioners must prostrate on wooden boards outside of their homes (see photo).

Drolmatso in her small prayer room

LhamoTso readies her prostration board, which is too large to fit inside of her prayer room

Decline in health
For the past 40 years, the villagers have had no place to do daily rituals, which, while being primarily religious/cultural in nature, also serve as daily exercise. When there was a temple, the old people went there to listen to Buddhist teachings, circumambulate, and prostrate. Now they all stay at home, and although some attempt to prostrate, many do not get any physical exercise. Lack of exercise contributes to the onset of acute pain on back and arthritis. Some elder villagers people are not yet 65, but they are already bedded.

Low morale
Perhaps the most noticeable problem caused by the destruction of the original village temple is a feeling of depression and hopelessness among the villagers. When the temple was destroyed, so was the heart of the village. The eldest villagers are saddened by the thought that the village may never be returned to its rightful state, and also by the indifferent attitude that most of the younger generation has towards Tibetan religion and culture.

Benefits

Rebuilding the Xialadi temple will have several substantial benefits:

• Strengthen Tibetan culture and teach younger generations about religion

• Strengthen community ties

• Provide a place for lay people and practitioners to worship and conduct rituals and practices.

• Encourage daily exercise

• Raise morale

Rebuilding Xialadi temple will benefit the village in myriad ways. In addition to strengthening the village’s ties to traditional Tibetan culture by providing a place of worship and religious practice, the temple will serve as a community center where villagers can meet and socialize. It will provide grandparents with an opportunity to pass their knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism on to the younger generation, and it will afford devout practitioners a place to comfortably conduct their practice. It will also give the elder villages an excuse to leave their homes and exercise. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it will restore the village’s “heart” and raise the villagers’ spirits.

Beneficiaries
This project will benefit a total of 336 people, including 200 Xialadi villagers and 136 Tibetan villagers from the next valley. It will also benefit many generations of Xialadi villagers still to come.

The steps of the project (describe each step of the project)

• Hold a meeting with the villagers (both males and females) and the local leaders.
• Assign villagers to the project committees which will be in charge of building
• Go to Zhoune county town (the nearest market) to purchase the needed pillars for the temple.
• Local villagers transport stones for the foundation of the temple.
• Hire skilled workers from the county town.
• Build the temple with the combined labors of the villagers and the skilled workers.
• Collect and assemble information for final report, including interviews, photos, and receipts
• Write final report

Timeframe

The expected timeframe for this project is five months:

1. In the first month of funding we will buy the equipment for the temple.

• In the second and third month, we will build the temple

• In the forth month, we will paint the temple

• In the fifth month, we will put scriptures in the temple and complete the final report

• Detailed Budget

Local contribution

• Sustainability
This project will be very sustainable once the temple is built. Every family in the village will take turns being responsible for care of the temple. Each year, two families will have this responsibility, and at the end of the year, two different families will take on caring for the temple for one year, and so on. Examples of temple care committee tasks are: going to the temple to offer clean water to the Buddha images, cleaning the whole assembly hall, and examining the temple for damage and repairing it if any is found.

The villagers will pay for temple repairs. Each household will pay 5 rmb per year for repairing the temple. There are twenty households so the committee will have100 rmb to use for repairing the temple every year. This temple will last for many years, especially because the villagers have pledged to take good care of it.

Interviews
During the summer vacation, Padmatso (Bethany) went to home and interviewed some elder villagers. They said that they are desperate to have a temple in Xialadi Village, because they are always sad and they don’t have many reasons to go outside and exercise or meet with other villagers. They recounted that if they had Buddhist temple, they could practice in that temple and they can have enjoyable life with their elder companions . Below are three interviews of elder women from Xialadi Village:

“Why it is important to have a Buddhist temple in your village?”

Sonamkyi is a 74-year-old female practitioner

“If there were a temple for practicing Buddhism, it would be very good for our elder people, because they really can’t pay attention to the dharma when they stay at home and instead they want to waste time on gossiping. Sometimes I get sharp pains in my back and with my legs because of not doing exercise. Also I feel very lonely when the youngsters go out for work the whole day. If we can rebuild the temple, I will not feel lonely because I can circumambulate the temple every morning and evening.”

Lhamo Tsho is a 48-year-old female practitioner.

“The temple is very important to the villagers. The old temple was destroyed, and people wanted to rebuild it when they were once again allowed to practice their own religions. But it is very difficult to earn money from doing low skilled-jobs. The villagers didn’t have money to rebuild it, but we saved for a long time and we accumulated a little money for rebuilding the temple after many years. Finally, we had enough money to rebuild the temple. Unfortunately, the government ordered us to send our children to school, and pay the high school fees–otherwise they would punish the children. If we sent the children to Qiagai Township site’s school, it would take 5 hours for them to get there on foot. So, we used the money that we had saved for rebuilding temple to build a three-roomed school instead. After that we couldn’t get enough money to rebuild the temple. Some families have small rooms for practicing Buddhism, but the people’s belief is going to become strong if there is a Buddhist temple in Xialadi Village. Thanks for considering about our temple and I hope you can support us.

Gazang tsho is a 67-year-old woman.

“I am a blind woman and I have to stay at home everyday. I feel very lonely and sad even when I have enough time to chant Buddhist scriptures. So if we can rebuild a temple, I can ask other people to take care of me and to circumambulate the temple with me. I also can get partners to talk with and practice Buddhism with. I am 67 years old I am still hoping for a temple in Xialadi Village. Otherwise our culture is in danger.

The site of the original village temple, which is now covered over in barley fields (villagers have time and time again expressed their willingness to convert the current barley feilds into a space for the proposed temple.)

This project is to buy 320 m^2 of stainless steel sheet to repair the village stupa and protect local culture through preserving the village stupa as local tangible cultural artifact and to provide spiritual support to local people.

Asia Foundation funded this project

Hlamo Tso (Gina) is from Waku Village, Wendu Tibetan Township, Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, PRC. She graduated with an Associate’s degree in English and Tibetan at the English Training Program in Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department. Currently she is working as a full-time staff member at Shem Women’s Group.

Who? 570 people from the Waku village and another 456 people from the other seven nearby villages.

Photos of the project implementation

Both village men and women are participating in unloading the stainless steel sheets from the truck.

The skilled people are structuring the frame under the helps from local villagers that they could cover the damaged parts of stupa easily and safely. They just finished repairing the top part of stupa with yellow stainless steel sheet and it’s shining brightly in that sunny day.


The skilled people are repairing and covering the village stupa with stainless metal sheets and machines.

This is top part of stupa and completely covered by yellow stainless steel sheet

Project summary

Project Title: Cultural Preservation Project for Waku Village

Project goals: The immediate goal of this project to buy 320㎡of Stainless Steel sheet to cover the damaged parts of the village stupa, to prevent rain or snow drop inside, thus to prevent the village stupa from collapse. The overarching goal of this project is to protect local culture through preserving the village stupa as local tangible culture and to provide spiritual supports to local people.

Project location
Xunhua County is the only Salar Autonomous County in China. It is located in the southeastern of Qinghai Province and is about 163 kilometers away from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province. It has a territory of 2100 square kilometers. Salar, Tibetan, Hui, and Chinese live in the area. There are 154 villages in 9 townships and 1 town. The total population of the county is 114000. Tibetans number of 23,000 making up 30 percent of the total. Daowei, Wendu, Garang, Gangtsa Townships and Serchang Village are the five areas where Tibetans live in Xunhua County. The project takes place in Waku village which included in Wendu Tibetan Township.

Waku Tibetan Village is located twelve kilometers southeast of the administrative centre of Wendu Tibetan Township. It is 180 kilometers away from Xining. It is located in a valley surrounded by mountains and the villagers live in adobe-wood rooms constructed around a central rectangular-shaped open courtyard.

Project beneficiaries: This project benefited 570 people from the Waku village and another 456 people from the other seven nearby villages.

Implementation organization/individual: HlamoTso（Gina），Chopay(the Waku village leader)and Shem Women’s group

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Amount and date received

HlamoTso received 30,400rmb on April 7^th from LhamoTso (the financial officer in Shem Women’s Group).

Details of project activities

1.       Contacted Zongdrol Rayjay (Who knew where the materials can be purchased with reasonable price) to get the company contact information.

2.       Contacted firm’s leader to get specifications and prices for all of the materials

3.       Received funds.

4.       Contracts were signed with the Preservation project committee.

5.       Purchased stainless steel sheets from Eastern Stainless-steel Main Company in Xining

6.       Looked for skilled people who know or good at fixing metal works

7.       Found necessary tools for fixing

8.       The cracking parts are repaired

9.       Held a ceremony for the completion project and the village leader explained details of project costs include local contribution.

10.   Interviewed the local people and took photos

11.   Worked on final report

Project Finances

Explanation: The project costs 34,200rmb, among the 34,200rmb Asia foundation donated 15,462rmb and Shem Women’s Group donated 15,438 to this project, local people donated 3,300rmb include project management expenses 600rmb and the expenses that was over. Due to unexpected price for fixing, the formal budget couldn’t cover all the expenses so some villagers donated rest of money voluntarily on a village meeting. So the project completed successfully.

Difficulties and lesson learned
The first difficulty that I have met was that while I was starting to purchase materials I got confused about the thickness of Stainless-steel sheet. Some villagers said thicker is good but some said it’s inconvenient to cover stupa with thicker stainless-steel sheet. I am the project manager but I didn’t know what to do while the villagers gave comment about the size of thickness of metal sheet. So I visited Zongzhi Ryagyal who had repair stupa with stainless steel sheet.

The second difficulty was that the price of fixing fee is much higher than what we expected before while I was writing proposal. So I and some villagers had meeting for several times and discussed about project costs again, so some of them suggested me to ask for more money from donor. However, I have explained how Shem projects work, and explained that it was impossible to ask donor again. Then we asked the skilled people to make the fixing fee lower, and had whole villagers come together and had meeting. At the time, some families voluntarily donated for the fixing fee which we did not have enough and project was completed happily.

Through these difficulties I have learnt it’s not good to believe in whatever villagers said even they asked about the information from other people. I made phone call to village leader to ask project committee to find out the fixing fee, but when I found out the fixing fee was not what they told, I felt regretted to rely on their information too much, so I believe it’s good to get information by self.

Interviews

He is the expert who knows how to fix the stupa, he has three skilled people as his disciple. When I interview him, they finished cover the top part of stupa. He was pleased by villager’s treatment toward them, like bring food and milk tea everyday for them.

Gongbo Tashi stopped school since he finished his high school in order to support his sister and brother’s school tuition. When I interviewed him he said he is very happy that the stupa is fixed in this year because there around 7 more students in this village who will take the College Entrance exam and the success of fixing stupa would bring them good luck on exam. This village will have more and more educated people in future. He also said that when he is free he came and helped the skilled people to cover the stupa and said that he also can learn some skills of using machine to cut metal sheet.  

Her name is Wanma Kandorl and she is not from Waku village but from Dangkha village which is nearby Waku village and she is a high school student. She said that I love to contribute some money for fixing of stupa but I am just a student and I really couldn’t contribute much money. I feel really happy that the stupa looks more beautiful than before and it gives me supports to do more practice at the school with hope and feel happy that I could contribute 5rmb even it’s not much helpful.

Letter of appreciation

Translated Thank You Letter
Dear thankful the Asia Foundation and Shem Women’s Group

I am Waku village leader Chopay. Today I represent all households in Waku village to thank you for your kind helps and loving kindness toward our village to preserve and rebuild our village stupa and bring happiness to all villagers.

All the villagers in Waku would prayer for your success and achievements.

Tashi Delek

   From: Waku Village Leader Chopay

                                 Date: 2009/5/6

Receipts

Receipt #1



Above three receipts are the costs of White and Yellow Stainless Steel sheet 25,600 RMB and transportation fee1, 700 RMB is included in this. I have used the company’s truck to transport the materials to Waku village.

Receipt #2

This receipt for fixing fee, there are four skilled people worked on cover cracking parts of stupa with Stainless Steel sheet and the actual fixing fee is 5800 RMB, the3,800rmb is paid from donor contribution and local people donated 2,000rmb for repairing fee.

Original Proposal
Project location
Xunhua County is the only Salar Autonomous County in China. It is located in the southeast of Qinghai Province and is about 163 kilometers away from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province. It has a an area of 2100 square kilometers. Salar, Tibetan, Hui, and Chinese live in the area. There are 154 villages in 9 townships and 1 town. The total population of the county is 114,000. There are about 23,000 Tibetans, making up 30 percent of the total population. Daowei, Wendu, Garang, Gangtsa Townships and Serchang Village are the five areas where Tibetans live in Xunhua County. The project takes place in Waku village which is included in Wendu Tibetan Township.

Waku Tibetan Village is located twelve kilometers southeast of the administrative centre of Wendu Tibetan Township. It is 180 kilometers away from Xining. It is located in a valley surrounded by mountains and the villagers live in adobe-wood rooms constructed around a central rectangular-shaped open courtyard.

Population
This village is home to approximately 115 households of 660 people. There are around 220 women and 206 men and 234 children in the village. All residents are Tibetan.

Education
Mostly none of the adults and old people have had an education because there were no schools when they were young. Even if there were schools, they wouldn’t have had enough money to pay for tuition and they thought attending school is kind of a waste of time. As the young adults go outside to look for work and increase their family cash income, more and more people in the village realize the importance of the education and attending school. There are around 190 children in Waku village, and there are 17 university students (6 girls and 11 boys); 20 middle-school and high-school students (13 boys and 7 girls); 63 primary school students (31 girls and 32 boys). Usually only one child can attend school even though the families usually have more than two children, because they don’t have enough money to pay for all of their children to attend school. Moreover, some families don’t even send one child to school because of limited family members for chores in the family.

Cash income
In this area, most young men go outside to earn cash by doing hard physical labor such as digging caterpillar fungus, gold mining and road paving. Much of the agricultural work is the duty of women. Although the men earn some money from outside, it is just enough to finance their children’s school expenses. Also their traditional ways of making a living (such as colleting fuel from local forest and dig medical herbs around village) is becoming limited because of the environmental conservation policies. The villagers realized that they needed to learn some new skills for improving their livelihood.

Despite a long history of trade and commerce, Tibetans have not effectively captured opportunities from emerging markets and services because the limitation of work skills and traditional customs.

On average, each family’s cash income is about 2,500 rmb/year. Locals can earn around 1,000 rmb by selling animal products like butter, yak hair, wool, livestock and cheese. Villagers also earn around 1,500 rmb by working out side the village. These activities include collecting caterpillar fungus (a medicinal herb), doing road work, constructing animal shelters and working in gold mines.

Despite these outside sources of income, several households in the village do not have an adequate supply of food during the year. The factors influencing this level of poverty are detailed below.

The government assigned the amount of land on the basis of the number of household members. Over time, some households have increased in number and the amount of cropland is too little to adequately feed the family members.

Some households do not have enough cash to buy fertilizer, which means that their crop yields are low. Each household approximately spends 600 rmb to buy three kinds of fertilizer. Around 1300 rmb needs to be spent on electricity, clothing and other family expenses such as salt and tea leaves. On average, each family spends 600 rmb on school expenses like food, clothes, sheets and note books for students in middle school or primary school. If the family has a university student then, the family must borrow from other people. What they earn in one whole year is needed to pay back debts and then the family must borrow money from others again for the student’s tuition for the next year. So until the student graduates, the family condition cannot be improved.

Some households have a few young people to do active farm work, herding, or outside work to earn extra income.

Agriculture
Each family owns about 6-10 mu of land. People in this area plant wheat, barley, beans, potatoes and two kinds of oil plant. On average, one mu of land can produce around 300 kg of barley. The cultivation of crops in the village is not mechanized. Plowing is done by mules and horses. Other activities like weeding and harvesting are done by hand by both men and women. Waku Village has approximately180 mu of un-irrigated fields (fields in the highlands cannot be irrigated; growth depends on natural rain) and 140 mu of trees.

Herding/livestock
Most families herd some livestock, like goats, sheep, yak, donkey and horses. Villagers herd livestock in several grassland areas. Each family has around 10 to 18 animals. There are 2497 livestock in total for the whole village. To reach areas from the village requires one day by foot. Villagers face a number of problems with herding, such as, conflicts between Tibetan communities over grazing areas, weather-related injury and death of livestock, natural causes of death of animals. For example, in 2003 summer, it a lightning storm struck a flock of sheep and killed 240 sheep from the village.

Weather
The weather in Xunhua is cold in the winter and hot in summer. Local people keep a constant fire burning in their stoves for almost six months of the year because it is cold in the winter. Previously, villagers used firewood from the forest nearby to cook and heat their homes. Recently the government has banned collecting wood from the forest, so each family must spend 180 rmb on fuel per year now because of the cold weather. Some times in this area especially during the June to August, it rains very heavily and causes floods, which destroys local fields as well as damages buildings, including the village stupa.

Project Goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 320 m^2 of stainless steel sheet to cover the village stupa. This will prevent rains and snow from further damaging the stupa and will ensure that the stupa does not collapse.

The overarching goal of this project is to protect local culture through preserving the village stupa as local tangible cultural artifact and to provide spiritual support to local people.

Problems
1. The images and dharma books inside stupa are damaged
There are lots of important dharma books and different images or statuaries inside the stupa. The stupa has been cracking partly at the top and when it rains water goes inside stupa and damages all the objects in it.

2. It’s dangerous to circulate around the village stupa
The top of the village stupa was damaged, and it was badly cracked. Locals are afraid come to the stupa to do religious activities especially circumambulation. Also the grandparents become very busy, since they have to make sure that their grand children do not go near the stupa and they need to spend more time on taking care of the children.

3. The villagers are worrying about the sustainability of the stupa
According to interviews that I did on Feb, 17^th 2008, the villagers had strong idea to collect money from each household to repair the stupa. However, most of families can’t give money at all, because last year there was a governmental policy that dictated that all villages should build paths in the village with cement. At the time the village didn’t have running water. They had to do a running water project before the cement path could be built in the village. These two events happened one by one. The government collected 500 rmb from each household for the cement path and 400 rmb for the running water project at the end of last year. Therefore, it’s very difficult for the families to spend money on preserving the stupa. They owe money to others and some families were not able to pay back their debts. It’s not a good time to collect money from families for repairing the stupa. Also the village stupa gives locals spiritual power and supports community feeling.

4. The number of people who are doing religious activities are decreasing rapidly
The stupa is located in Waku village and it’s the village’s only stupa. But before more people from the other near villages around Waku village such as Zhaisa, Dangkha, Rimag, Nisai, Jiangjia, Rima and Caizai villages came to the stupa to do religious activities like circumambulation. There was always a crowd of people there. They had lots of topics to talk about and sometimes exchanged ideas. Also sometimes they enjoyed meals together beside the stupa. This was before the stupa was damaged. However, recently only one or two people can be seen near the stupa, since the stupa was cracked partly and the locals are afraid that the stupa would fall down and injure villagers.

Benefits

1. The statuaries and religious books inside stupa can be saved from being damaged
The project will repair the cracked parts with stainless steel sheets. It will prevent water damage inside the stupa. The statuaries and religious books inside stupa can be saved from being damaged by rain.

2. No risks of doing religious activities near the village stupa
The stupa will be strong, steady and invulnerable since the cracking parts will be repaired to prevent rain from damaging the stupa. Locals will no longer need to be afraid to come to the stupa to do religious activities. Also the elders will no longer need to worry about their grandchildren’s safety to play near the stupa while they are busy.

3. The villagers no longer need to worry about the sustainability of the stupa
The project will improve the most serious problem in the village recently by providing materials to protect the village stupa from been damaged and empower the villagers spiritually.

4. The number of people who are doing religious activities will be increased
The project will improve the steadiness of the stupa and people will feel safe to come to the stupa and continue their daily activities as before. Also the project will increase the number of the participants doing religious activities near the stupa.

Beneficiaries
This project will benefit 570 people from the Waku village and another 456 people from the other seven nearby villages such as, Zhaisa, Dangkha, Rimag, Nisai, Jiangjia, Rima and Caizai.

Gender Equality
In Wendu Tibetan Township men and women likely believe that women are inferior. There are many things in place in the village that discriminate against women, from unequal work practices to religious rituals. From June 15th to August 1st, a ritual takes place within the local monastery which specifies that women may not enter the monastery complex. For 45 days they are not allowed to enter the monastery. Another example can be seen in the general preference for monks leading rituals in family’s houses, rather than nuns. Even though both villagers and nuns practice the same religious ceremonies, the nuns are seen as inferior. If this project is funded, then there is a high possibility that the community’s perceptions of women will begin to change.

Village people will see that a woman can successfully design, manage and implement a much needed development project. An important message will be sent to the community at large. I have seen this transformation after other successful projects, including a solar cooker project in my local area. At this time, people said that young women such as me were actually better at getting things done than any man. I believe that through this project, people’s perceptions of women could change, and it would be understood that women and girls could make genuine and substantial contributions to their communities.

Government Approval
The local government believes that to protect local cultural heritage is the most important thing. They gave permission and supported the project when a village secretary discussed it with Chopay (new village leader) and XiawoThai (the old village leader).

Project Steps
1. Collect information regarding the basic needs for the villagers. (Already done)

2. Visit XiawoThai, who is the village leader. Discuss the risks of village stupa’s sustainability. (Already done)

3. Have meeting with XiawoThai, Chopay (the man who will be the village leader), PamaTsedan (an old man who knows more about the construction of stupas) and LimaoThai (a village woman who really supports this project a lot), and discuss how to do this project and divide the labor. (Already done)

4. The project committee is established with the participation of both men and women. This committee is composed of six people – four men, a village woman and the project manager Hlamotso (Gina). (Already done)

5. Visit village stupa with the Preservation project committee and take photos. (Already completed)

6. Contact Zongdrol Rayjay (who knows where the materials could be purchased for a reasonable price) to get the company contact information.

7. Contact firm’s leader to get specifications and prices for all of the materials.

8. Receive funds.

9. Contracts are signed with the preservation project committee.

10. Purchase stainless steel sheets from Eastern Stainless-steel Main Company in Xining.

11. The cracking parts are repaired.

12. Establish a sustainable management plan. This will involve choosing five members who are responsible and have good reputations within the village by a meeting. These members will manage the system for a set period of time, and will then choose a new committee for the upcoming years.

13. Document the success of the project, take photos, and interview the villagers.

14. Write final report.

15. Send the final report do the donor with photos and receipts.

Time Frame
This project will take 16 days to be completed:

1 day: Hold a meeting with committee talks about the project plan
1 day: Sign any contracts with the project committee.
3 days: Purchase the materials
10 days: The expert will work on repair things under villagers’ helps
1day: Hold meeting with the project committee to talks about the project sustainable management plan.

Detailed Budget

Total amount requested from donor: 30,400rmb

Project Sustainability
The villagers will take care of the stupa and repair any damages in a timely manner after the project. The villagers have access to skilled workers who have the necessary skills to make repairs, as they will be involved in the entire process of this project since the stupa gives them strong spiritual support. Additionally, I checked steel markets in Xining and also visited some monasteries that used stainless steel sheets with stupas to get more information about the quality of stainless steel sheets. So the quality of materials is reliable.

Additional Information
The project manager HlamoTso has managed some small scale development projects in Qinghai province and Sichuan province.

In 2002, Hlamo Tso implemented and monitored (on a volunteer basis) a 3,900 rmb solar cooker project for Waku Tibetan Village, which was supported by Canada Fund.

In 2003, Hlamo Tso did three second hand clothes projects for Waku village.

From August to December in 2005 Hlamo Tso worked for Green Kham, a grass-roots development organization based in Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province. She helped the organization to evaluate their projects and translate proposals.

In 2007, she successfully completed a running water project for Kangmo monastery, which was funded by The Royal Netherlands Embassy.

Photos

The project committee discusses the solutions for the problems and divides labor.

The villagers worriedly check the risks of the village’s stupa.

Map of the project location

To provide a well-protected religious center for the area, and repair and protect the Temple and water powered prayers as cultural heritage.

The Royal Netherlands Embassy Funded this project

Gadouzhuoma (Lillian) -is from Hezuo City, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and Gansu Province, China. Currently, studying in English Training Program, Qinghai Normal University for her associate degree, majoring in Tibetan and English.
What?

Repair the 18 water powered wheel prayers.
Repair the walls of the Temple
Repair the external walls that surrounding the Temple.

Who? Lurixi Village, Mari Township, Zhuoni County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province.

Photos of project implementation
A repaired wall of Temple.

A repaired external wall.

Repaired stairs to the Temple, which is not included in project proposal and budget, but the villagers volunteered for the work.

A repaired external wall.

A repaired prayer wheel.

Many other repaired prayer wheels.

Project summary

Project title: Cultural Preservation Project in Lurixi Tibetan Community

Project goals: To provide a well-protected religious center for the area, and repair and protect the Temple and water powered prayers as cultural heritage.

Location of project: This project is located Zhuoni County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous prefecture, Gansu Province, PR, China. The village is about 90km away from Hezuo, the capital of Gannan Prefecture.

Total beneficiaries: In total about 309 people will benefit from this project.

Implementation organization/individual: Gatubdrolma(Lillian), Lurixi Village committee with 6 people and Shem Women’s Group.

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Source, Amount, and Date Received

The project manager Gatubdrolma(Lillian) received 13,800RMB donation from Royal Netherland Embassy in July, 2007.

Details of project activities
Originally planned project activities:

Project Activities:

Step 1. Get ideas from local people and gather information of their condition and project by holding some meetings. The project manager has chosen 6 people, including two community female members to form a local project committee to be responsible for the sustainability.

Step 2. Asked experts and experienced workers about the workers payment, design and potential risks.

Step 3. Went to the local market to get basic ideas about the price of different items and materials.

Step 4. Took pictures of site and the parts where the project is supposed to take place. Interview some of people who will benefit from the project.

Step 5. Make budget and write applications.

The above 5 steps are done already.

If the project is funded

Step 6. Implementation of the project.

1) Contact and decide a reliable company about the materials and sign contract for its guarantee of quality.

2) Ask the local project committee and villagers to buy materials and deliver it to the project site. Meanwhile, ask villagers to be ready for upcoming work and responsibilities.

3) Make a detailed and organized working schedule for the whole project to make sure the project is finished on time.

4) Implementation

There are three main activities in this project:

Repair the collapsing three sides of the temple walls by building them back up with bricks.
Repair the outside walls of the temple, which are falling apart.
Repair the water powered prayer wheels with new bricks, planks and tiles.

Step 7. Take pictures and make a plaque acknowledging the donor.

Step 8. Interview some of the beneficiaries and gather some information to measure the effectiveness of the project on people’s lives. How it changed people’s living conditions and their attitudes and understandings.

Step 9. Write a detailed project final report including thank you letters, photos, interviews, project activities and report of the benefits of the project.

Step 10. Submit the final report with photos and receipts.

Activities realized in the framework of the project:

1. The project manager had a meeting with local villager representatives and discussed about problems and solutions.

2. In May 2006, the project manager designed the project.

3. The project manager did research on the project and materials needed for the project in local market.

4. In May 2006, the project manager took pictures and interviewed local villagers.

5. From May to December of 2006, the project manager was writing project proposal and did the budget with help from Shem Tibetan Women’s Group

6. In July, 2007, the project manager received 13,800RMB from the Royal Netherland Embassy.

7. The project started in July, 2007 right after the money being transferred to the Village committees, and it lasted mid August, 2007. The project manager was not in the field at the time, but the project needed to start right away, and needed to purchase materials such as cement, and planks in order to start with. So the project manager discussed this issue with the project committees, and decided to send 1/5 of the money to buy things, and get started before it is too late, before the harvesting season. There will be less people who can contribute time working on the project if the harvesting season started.

8. The project manager took pictures and did interviews in mid- August 2007 in Lurixi Village and started working on the final report.

9. The project manager finished the final report on October 10, 2007.

Project Finances

A translation of the names in EnglishLurixi Village Household Namelist:
1.Zhoujiekar 2. Sangguo 3. A lou 4. Sambo 5. Daogao 6. Yem Tashi 7. Peba Xiu 8. Dangtso 9. Zhoujia Xiu 10. Mina 11. Daitso 12. Tuotso 13. Daojee Dongzhib 14. Loushi 15. Tserang 16. Nimaotso 17. Lamao Xiu 18. Tashi Tsedan 19. Lamao TashiChangguo Village Household Namelist:1. Renqin 2. Zhouxiu 3. Niangyang 4. Angjel 5. A bu 6. Keshun 7. Fengyin 8. Qinshun 9. Ma Tserang 10. Zengyin 11. Tserang 12. Fuseng 13. Luosang 14. Baoshen 15. Baoxiang 16. Wenzong 17. Yim Tserang 18. Senglin 19. Renqin 20. Wenchen 21. Bedma 22. Guodi 23. Heyin 24. Lamao 25. Wendi 26. Zixiang 27. Liujiadi 28. Gayin 29. Paba 30. Linxiang

Delays, Difficulties, and lessons learned
Delays
We delayed the date of final report for about a month. There are several reasons to contribute to the fact: 1) the project manager was busy with her study, and did the final report once, but turned out to be badly damaged for some reasons, being corrupted by some technical problems. 2) The project did not get to start until the villagers actually got the money, and it was until mid-July that the villagers got the money from the manager. The project manager did not give all the money together to the village committees, but gave them according to the process of implementation, such as distributing money for cement, and all those materials first. The project manager held back some money until she was on the filed from August; she was able to supervise the project implementation and financial expenses as well. It is always important to build a strong relationship with village committees, since sometimes the project manager is unable to be on the field, the trust-worthy village committee has to shoulder some responsibilities as well. Since the project is addressing needs of village, and village committees were chosen from people with good reputation and some other criteria, they are in most cases are responsible.
Difficulties
1. Transportation of materials had been a problem because of the road construction in the village. The government was building a road to Lurixi Village, and they damaged the original road, and bridge, made tractors unable to move through to the village to transport the cement and sands.

2. Project manager was not able to be in the field all through the implementation. The project manager Lillian Gatubdrolma was working in Xining city in Qinghai province, which is about 450km away from the project site, and she couldn’t go back and be on the field all the time. This may affect the implementation of the project and likely no one would be in charge of that, may have greater chances for the project to fail, but the village committees were responsible and highly engaged with the work, which made the project successful.

3. Lack of labor to help with the construction. Many adults’ men were out doing paid work, since they serve a major work force in the original proposal; the project has been somehow affected. However the village committee was able to get more volunteers, elder, children and women all participated in the project implementation.

4. The change of the implementing process. Before in the original proposal, the project manager included 5 experts paying according to the amount of the work they do, but the actual situation turns out to be that the experts insisted on paying daily, and we found it is more expensive this way. However, the project manager and village committee had no other choice at the moment, so reduced the number of the experts, and so the project spent 320.8RMB extra money more than it is budgeted.
Lessons learned
1. If the project is not going to be funded in a short time, and it’s taking longer period to be funded, the project manager should always update the budget with the actual local market price, and labor price. So this way, this will reduce the loss of villagers, when the cost is beyond their local contribution.

2. It is better to have a good trust worthy village project committee both formed by different gender. Those people should be selected as prestigious, hardworking and responsible, so they can help the project manager for the implementation since they got those understanding of local situation, and may be able to order the villagers to work, and convince them more easily if there is a problem. Also they can be on the behalf of the project manager to observe the project, and supervise work of workers.

3. Resourcefulness is very important. When the road does not allow tractor and vans to go through and transportation problem became a major difficulty for the project, then we depended on local resource such as mules, donkeys and yaks to transport the cement, etc. And we asked local villagers to help us load and unload sacks of sands, etc.

4. The project manager, when she is doing the final report, it is better to keep many copies of that, so when a file is damaged, she can still use other saved files. This way, effort of work will not be lost because of those uncertain factors.

Interviews

Caidan Norbu (b. 1970) is one of young adult who goes out to earn money each year in Lurixi Village. He said he grew up in this village, and his children were sent to school to receive education which he never had the chance to do so. He remembered all those people from nearby village came together, and discussed about the issues in the villages, solve deputies or pray for good fortune in this holy Temple. His mother is a strong believer, who prays everyday, and who does turning the prayers everyday. He insisted his mother not going to pray near the Temple since the bricks are falling off, and he was worried she will get injured. Now he can just let her go, and let her spend whole day there praying with those other elders.

Danzhitso (b. 1935) is the grandmother of project manager who is living in this village, who also spent her entire life in this village, and experienced how things changed in the past, how everything is so different from what it used to be. She said at old times, all the villager gathered together perform dancing and singing at New Year near the holy Temple, and now every family got TV, they do not come out, and they forgot their culture. Young people do not pray and chant, they thought it is a waste of time, but elders still do, they turn the prayers, and chant, and circumambulate the prayers and temple to wish all the beings good luck, and all the best. Her son does not want her to go over near the prayers and temple cause those old construction are falling apart, and was not in a good shape. Culture and religious center has been forgotten by all new generations, but elders still insisted on their beliefs. They are now much happier that people start to consider the importance of religion and culture they have.

Zhaxi Caidan (b. 1950) is one of the residents in Lurixi village, who happened to experience two different lives. The life with stronger beliefs, and now less devoted to religion and culture. There is no course offered in primary school in Lurixi village, and nearby schools as well. Children get to learn Chinese, which they are not native for that, but required. Children have no means to learn culture beside through their elder generations and those cultural heritages. He said it is very important to preserve those spots and construction for future generations for them to remember who they are, and not forgetting the history, religion and culture.
Letter of appreciation
Scanned letter in Tibetan

Translation

Dear Royal Netherland Embassy:

Thanks very much for your help with this cultural preservation project. It has been a great fortune of us to receive help from you. Lurixi village is not very remote, but yet the government is too busy to pay its attention to us in last years. But this year, they started to build a road in the village, because they wanted to explore the tourism, and cultural aspect of the village, to attract more tourists. In the past, the village remained as poor, and had many problems with food, water, livestock and children’s education. There is no end to the problems, but we still feel the importance sof our culture and beliefs. Elder people have strong sense of keeping the tradition and wanted to circumambulate the Temple and prayers everyday. We had no money for the repairing work, but we wanted to do something. Thanks for making our wish became true, and with the ever turning prayers, we wish all the best luck to all the members in your organization.

Thanks again!! Tashi Delek!!!

Lurixi village

Receipts

We were unable to get official receipts, because if we demand for official receipts, those businessmen will charge higher price for us, which is beyond our budget. Also those skilled workers are not from government or any company, they are from local area and they can’t provide an official receipts as well.

Receipt 1: 1,584 tiles, 1RMB/ per tile. The subtotal is 1,584RMB.

50Planks, 18RMB/ per piece, the subtotal is 900RMB.

Total: 2,484RMB.

Receipt 2: Cement 4 tons, 350RMB/ per ton, total: 1,400RMB.

Receipt 3: Bricks 9,860 pieces, 0.53RMB/ per piece, total: 5,227RMB.

Receipt 4: Payment 25 days, 55RMB/ per day, 3 skilled experts. Total: 4,125RMB.

Receipt 5: Sand, total: 4,400RMB.

Original Proposal

Project Location
Lurixi Tibetan Community, Mari Township, Zhuoni County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, PR. China. This village is about 90km away from the Hezuo City, the major city of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province.

Population
1. This project will benefit two villages, Lurixi and Changguo.

The population in Lurixi Village is 129 people. 47 men, 56 women and 26 children (under 17)

The population in Changguo Village is 180 people. 64 men, 78 women and 38 children (under 17)

The total population that would benefit from this project is 309 people . Among them, 30% of the people are over 50, 26% are under 17 and the remaining 34% are between 17 to 50 years old. 55% of the total population is women.
2. This project may also benefit 5 adjacent villages with more than 1,400 people and at least 300 pilgrims a year.

Education
Throughout the history of the village only one person has ever received an official job. 90% of the adults can’t read or write. There are about 34 school-aged children in this village, but only 80% of them attend school from primary to high school. The remaining 20% of the children stay at home. Although the government announced a policy of free tuition, schools in rural areas still collect money from the children, which make it difficult for some families to send them to school. Also, some families need children to help with herding or to do some housework. Finally, the primary school is far away from the village, about 15km, while the middle school is in the county town, about 45km away.

Cash income
The average person in this village makes 150 RMB per year by selling extra farming products (beans) and a limited number of livestock (sheep, yaks, butter and wool) .

Taxes
There have been no taxes since last year. In the past, people used grain and some money to pay for their livestock and farmland. An average family needed to pay 200-300 jin of grain and around 100 RMB.

Agriculture
The total number of farmland one family owns depends on the number of family members recorded when the village divided the land many decades ago. In the two villages, the biggest family might have 12 mu of farmland while the smallest might have about 4 mu. They grow wheat, rapeseeds and beans, with the highest yield of wheat being about 500 jin.

Herding
Not all the families in this village own livestock. Those that do own livestock have anywhere between 5 and 45 sheep. Only 9 families own more than 12 sheep and there is one family that owns 21 yaks. The average family has about 7 sheep and 1 yak.

Weather
There is no clear change between spring and winter. Cold weather lingers for about 5 months, requiring people to wear heavy clothing. Since the farmland is all in the mountains, they depend heavily on rain. In 2006 the land suffered from a severe drought, which greatly affected farming output. One year the rapeseed crop dried out and in 2006 some of the land only generated 200 jin of grain per mu. This forces people to spend money on food that would otherwise be provided by farming.

Project Goals

The overarching goal of the project is to establish a well protected religious center and preserve cultural heritage

The immediate goal of the project is to r epair village temple and water powered prayer wheels

Problems
The Cultural and religious center of lurixi is in danger of disappearing. This cultural center consists of one main Temple, with more than 600 years of history, and 18 water-powered prayer wheels above the sacred stream. It has traditionally been the center for 7 Tibetan villages from the adjacent areas – with a population of more than 1700 people. People gather here many times a year to carry out religious rituals and discuss important events. People also gather here to pray for good harvests, happiness and peace.
Lack of money to repair the collapsing walls of the main temple. Before 1949, monks from Zhuoni Tibetan Buddhist Monastery had been in charge of taking care of this Temple and the water-powered prayer wheels. There was a big forest used only to cover the expenses of repairing the temple and water-powered prayer wheels. However, this tradition did not continue after 1949 and the people have had to solve the problems themselves. Although the Temple was rebuilt in 1996 from a limited source of money collected from local people, its walls were made of dirt and after ten years of wind and rain damage, cracks are beginning to show. The Buddha statues and old Tangkas are also in danger of being exposed to the elements and the building’s dilapidated condition makes it dangerous for use by elders and pilgrims.
The exterior walls around the Temple are in terrible condition. They were made out of dirt and are falling down so that livestock can easily run into the temple and trample the things inside the walls, such as the Sang Platform where people burn offerings during auspicious days.
All 18 of the water-powered prayer wheels, built on the sacred stream, are in urgent need of repair. They were built decades ago and it has been a long-time tradition for elders and pilgrims to come and circumambulate them. Now, however, they are almost falling apart. The wind, rain and birds have damaged the religious scriptures inside the prayer wheels.

Solutions

Repair the collapsing three sides of temple walls with bricks. This will prevent elders and people who are circumambulating the Temple from getting injured and prevent the Buddha statues and scriptures inside from getting damaged by wind and rain.

Repair the outside walls of the temple, which are falling apart.

Repair the Water Powered Prayer Wheels, using new bricks, planks and tiles. Reduce the damage by rain and wind to the scriptures inside.

Through the three main activities above, villagers can expect to see the water-powered prayer wheels turning all year round. Also, people will continue to benefit from the existence of the Temple and the water-powered prayer wheels.

Benefits

a. About 1,700 people from 7 villages will have a place to carry on religious rituals and continue their customs. It would also provide a space to gather everyone together to solve problems and pray.

b. Elders can circumambulate the Temple and Water Powered Prayer Wheels without worrying about getting injured by the collapsing walls of the Temple.
c. It will preserve this cultural spot for next generations so all the traditional customs and rituals may carry on.

Interviews

Zhaxitso (b. 1956) is an ordinary Tibetan woman from Lurixi Village. “Young people are always busy making money and farming, but we should be repairing the Temple or the outside walls. If you circumambulate, you can see the scriptures exposed to the sun and rain. We need money to fix it, but since the forest is forbidden for us to cut down to generate money we have difficulties funding such a project. We do not have a way to make money, but we cannot leave those water-powered prayer wheels falling apart.”

Zhijica (b. 1954) was born in this village and has lived in this village for his life time. He voluntered to help me to do the budget and tell me the story of this village. Later he said he can not imagine oneday, younger generations in this village no longer believe in their clture and they do not know their roots and identity. He said once people from outside came to this village very often, and now the number is decreasing, even during important religious rituals. He said this temple and water-powered prayer wheels are so significant to people here and it is part of their life!

Dingzizhaxi (b. 1949) is an important person in this village since he had been the village leader for many years. He is one of the people who asked me if I could help this village looking for funds to repair ruined walls and prayer wheels. If the temple and prayer wheels can remain unchanged and in a good condition, people will constantly come to this village as a cultural center and it could bring all the people from this area together as we used to be. Not only that we elders can circumambulate the temple and prayer wheels at leisure time. Young people can keep this tradition for longer time and our culture and customs will never die.

Gender equality
This project will help empower local women by enlisting their participation in project implementation. Because the project manager is a local woman, it will also raise awareness among locals of women’s capabilities as community leaders.

Women will participate in all level of project implementation, collecting local contributions, and providing unskilled labor alongside local men during construction.

This project will give the project manager practical and real training on doing research in local area, observing living conditions and organizing local villagers such that project implementation is successful. It is such a large project that its implementation will hopefully cause local people to think about females in a different way, maybe reducing some of their old prejudices against females.

Governmental support
The project manager met with the township leader, Libum, and he agreed that the project would be wonderful for the community and offered his support.

The steps of the project
Step 1. Got ideas from local people and gathered information on their conditions and needs through community meetings. Chose 6 people, including two local women, to form a local project committee responsible for sustainability.

Step 2. Collected information from experts and experienced workers about the workers salaries, project design and potential risks .

Step 3. Went to the local market to visit several businesses and ask about the prices of different items and materials.

Step 4. Took pictures of site and the places where the project is planned to take place, interviewed some of people who will benefit from the project.

Step 5. Wrote budget and project proposal.

The above 5 steps are completed already.

If the project is funded

Step 6. Implementation of the project.
1) Choose a reliable company from which to purchase construction materials and sign a contract which guarantees quality.

2) Buy materials with the local project committee and villagers and deliver them to the project site. Prepare villagers for upcoming work and responsibilities.

3) Make a detailed and organized working schedule for the whole project to make sure it is finished on time.

4) Begin Construction:

There are three main activities in this project:

Repair the collapsing three sides of the temple walls by building them back up with bricks.
Repair the outside walls of the temple, which are falling apart.

Repair the water powered prayer wheels with new bricks, planks and tiles.

Step 7. Take pictures and make a plaque acknowledging the donor’s contribution.

Step 8. Interview some of the beneficiaries and gather some information to measure the effectiveness of the project on people’s lives. How it changed people’s living conditions and their attitudes and understandings.

Step 9. Write a detailed project final report including thank you letters, photos, interviews, project activities and report of the benefits of the project.

Step 10. Submit the final report with photos and receipts.

Timeframe

This project will be completed within two months at the most.

Budget
Donor Contribution

Local Contribution

Total project cost

Sustainability
The earlier ideas of this project came from local people about two years ago, when village elders mentioned that they really need such a project to be supported. From February of 2006, I started gathering information and photographs that might help inform the donors. In May of 2006, I visited local markets to find out reliable prices for the materials that must be purchased. I asked different skilled workers about the money that would have to be paid, asked the villagers what has to be done to complete this project, what are the local contributions and local involvement that could be promised. I asked what are the potential risks and the predictable project influences and effects and how important this project will be to the people who will benefit from it. Combining all the suggestions and information, this proposal was developed based upon actual local people’s needs and requests. I speak on behalf of my local villagers.

This is project is sustainable, because it is related to cultural heritage and the local villagers will form a project committee with about 10 capable people (both male and female) to manage its upkeep.
The donors are expected to reserve the right to visit and inspect projects at any time. The village project committee, as well as the local villagers and I will be responsible for maintaining the project after it has been implemented. If there are any unexpected costs or expenses for repairs, the villagers and villager leader agreed to pay for it.

Additional Information
This project must be implemented in summer when it is easy to do construction and the weather is good but also before the busy harvesting period. It is impossible to do this project in the winter since the weather is cold. The project must be completed at one time, not in several installments, so we need a block of two months time when the weather is good and the villagers are available to donate their labor.

Additional information for the manager, Gadouzhuoma (Lillian)
2003-applied 25 solar cookers from Canada Fund 2003 Solar Energy Project managed by Fred.

2004-applied 120 solar cookers from Canada Fund 2004-2005 Solar Energy Project

Worked as a co-manger on Canada Fund 2004-2005 Solar Energy Project with two other students, the project is valued at 420,000RMB

2005- applied 156 solar cookers from the Canada Fund 2005-2006 Solar Energy Project.

Worked as the manager of Canada Fund 2005-2006 Solar Energy Project. The project is valued at 420,000RMB.

2002-2006- I have completed six second-hand clothes projects to six different rural Tibetan communities in Gannan Prefecture of Gansu Province.

Photos

The ruined Temple stairs that people are unable to repair due to their limited annual cash income.

A ruined Water Prayer Wheel that has endured decades of rain and storm. It is falling apart and the written prayers within are almost exposed. The tiles and bricks it is built upon are falling down as well. This project will help to repair the 18 water prayer wheels.

The exterior walls of the Temple in Lurixi Village are falling apart. Using the bushes is the only way for the villagers to avoid the livestock entering and destroying the inner constructions like Sang Platform although it really does not help much. The villagers really hope some donors to help them.

This is the temple rebuilt during 1996 before the forest prohibition, and the villagers provided most of wood needed for this construction and now it is impossible for them to do the same thing. Except for the front side of the temple, three sides were made out of dirt and they are about to collapse and fall down. During leisure time, villagers, especially village elders, come and circumambulate the temple, we are afraid one of those people will be injured one day if the walls collapse and fall down. Not to mention the temple being ruined

This is another ruined water prayer wheel in Lurixi Tibetan Community built upon the sacred stream where giant salamanders live.

Diagrams

The General Picture of Lurixi Village and Five Parts of the Project

Repair the ruined water powered prayer wheels.
Repair the outside walls of the temple.
Repair the temple walls.

Map of Zhuoni County, Gannan Tibetan Prefecture, Gansu Province.

Completing Tawa Gonmga nunnery’s new prayer hall, elevating the nuns’ status within the Labrang community, and validating and preserving the cultural practices of the oldest nunnery in the Labrang valley.

Kitty Makley funded this project

Samtsogye is now working as a gender program director and core staff of Shem Women’s Group. She from Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China. She was graduated in 2006 with an associated degree in English from Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department’s English Training Program.

What? To Purchase：

•A) A dharma wheel and two deer.

•B) 600m Namyer (silk ceiling cloth) for four rooms in the prayer hall of the nunnery.

•C) Six Gemtsen (silk hanging) for the main prayer hall.

•D) Four Gaban (silk cloth) to decorate the main pillars in the prayer hall.

•E) Four Gaban Sirgao (golden head maxes) put on the top of the pillars.

•F) A throne carpet.

•G) A Sirtolk with two Gemtsen on the roof.

•H) Three food pots and three tea pots.

•I) 102.26m white Qidar and yellow Qidar (laces) around the prayer hall.

•J) Four pairs of locks.

•K) Two rows of Sadan (carpet) for the nuns.

•L) The prayer hall gate painted with nice, painted gold paper.

Who?

Tawa Gongma Nunnery, Labrang Township, Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province，PRC.

Photos of project implementation

The new main prayer hall of Tawa Gongma Nunnery with the Dharma Wheel, two deer, a Sirtolk, and two Gemtsen on the roof.

The dharma wheel and two deer with a Sirtolk and two Gemtsen on the roof of Tawa Gongma Nunnery (one Gemtsen is not shown).

The 102.26m white Qidar and yellow Qidar (laces) around the prayer hall (the yellow Qidar (laces) and most parts of the white Qidar aren’t shown).

The leader nun is thanking Kitty Mackley, the generous donor， who provided the two rows of Sardan (carpet), four Gaban (silk cloth), four Gaban Sirgao (golden head maxes), and six Gemtsen (silk hanging) for the prayer hall to make the hall completed.

The 600m Namyer (silk ceiling cloth) on the ceiling of the prayer hall.

The nice, good quality throne carpet is displayed in the main hall.

The religious tea pots.

The religious food pots.

One of the Gemtsen (silk hanging) in the main prayer hall.

The big golden lock is on the prayer hall gate and painted with gold paper.

The leader nun, Goncholk Dorma is showing the completed prayer hall of the nunnery with

excitement.

The project manager is interview the head nun, Gongcholk Drolma on May, 28^th, 2007, and Gongcholk Drolma is very happily telling how great it is to complete the prayer hall.

Project manager and Michelle Kleisath listening to the nuns’ cheerful sounds about the finishing prayer hall and thankful words about the donor.

The Nuns of Tawa Gongma Nunnery are very happy to hear that Kitty Makley has donated for rebuilding.

Project summary

Project title: Cultural Preservation for Tawa Gongma Nunnery

Project goals: Completing Tawa Gonmga nunnery’s new prayer hall, elevating the nuns’ status within the Labrang community, and validating and preserving the cultural practices of the oldest nunnery in the Labrang valley.

Location of project: Tawa Gongma Nunnery is located in Tawa Gongma village, in the south of Xiahe County (historically known as Labrang), Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. Xiahe is 278 kilometers from Lanzhou, the provincial capital, and 290 kilometers from Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province.

Total beneficiaries: All the 56 nuns in Tawa Gongma Nunnery directly benefit from this project and around 5,000 people from 10 nearby villages receive indirect benefits.

Implementation organization/individual: Samtsogye (Whitney), the head nun, Gongchalk Drolma, and Shem Women’s Group.

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Source, Amount, and Date Received

The project manager Samtsogye (Whitney) received 38,818rmb donation from Kitty Makley on January 26^th, 2007.

Details of project activities

Originally planned project activities

· Hold a meeting to discuss urgent needs and gather information for project proposal. (Already completed)

· Discuss project costs with Zhai xi Gamtso, the monk who is in charge of buying deer and Dharma wheel for the Labrang monastery. (Already completed)

· Secure donor funding.

· Hold a meeting with the nuns and discuss project implementation.

· Samstogye, the project manager and GongChok Droma travel to Lhasa to buy the deer. (Lhasa is the nearest and only city where these decorations can be purchased)

· Sign contract with the seller guaranteeing the quality of the decorations, and purchase the decorations.

· Samtsogye and GongChok Droma transport the decorations back to Lhabrang

· The Tawa Gongma nuns attach the dharma wheel and deer to the roof of their new prayer hall

· Interview local people (children, men and women) and nuns.

· Take pictures

· Write final report

• Send final report with all pictures and receipts.

Activities realized in the framework of the project

•1. The project manager had a meeting with all nuns in Tawa Gongma Nunnery and discussed problems and solutions.

•2. In March 2006, the project manager designed the project.

•3. In May 2006, the project manager took pictures and interviewed local villagers and the nuns.

•4. From May to December of 2006, the project manager was writing project proposal and created the budget with help from Shem Women’s Group

•5. On January, 26^th, 2007, the project manager received 38,883RMB from the most generous donor Kitty Makley.

•6. On February, 10th, 2007, Samtsogye went to the nunnery to announce the receiving of the donation from Charlene Makley’s mother, Kitty Makley and planned to go to Lhasa to buy the Drama Wheel and two deer.

•7. On February, 12th, 2007, the head nun Gongchok Drolma and the project manager Samtsogye went to Labrang Monastery told the head monk about going to Lhasa to buy the Drama Wheel and two deer. They were told that according to the local law, the ornaments at the nunnery must remain smaller than those in the monastery.

•8. From February, 13^th -March 10th (During the Tibetan New Year’s Day) Samtsogye did research on the project and purchasing goods for the project in the local market.

•9. On March 19th, 2007, Gongcholk Drolma and Samtsogye went to the Kumbum market, which is 295 kilometers away from Labrang County and ordered the Drama Wheel and the two deer. They found that the Drama Wheel and the two deer were much cheaper at Kumbum market than that in Lhasa.

•10. Samtsogye wrote an email to Kitty to ask her permission to buy other necessary ornaments for the Tawa Gongma Nunnery. After receiving permission, Samtsogye ordered four brown metal tea pots, four silvery food pots, four pairs of golden locks, four Gaban Sirgao (golden head maxes), and one Sirtolk with two Gemtsen at Kumbum market.

•11. After three months, on May 15^th, Gongcholk Grolma and Samtsogye went to the Tawa Gongma Nunnery in Labrang to deliver the ornaments that they already ordered from Kumbum market.

•12. In accordance with the local rule, after the prayer hall was completed, then the Drama Wheel and deer, and one Sirtolk with two Gemtsen were put on the roof.

•13. As the project manager is one of the program directors of Shem Women’s group, from June to September 2007, Samtsogye went to the United States to receive leadership training. Until the mild-Sept. Samtsogye didn’t have a chance to work on the final report.

•14. On Sept.10^th 2007, Samtsogye took pictures of the completed nunnery, did interviews with some beneficiaries, and started working on the final report.

•15. The project manager finished the final report on Sept.22, 2007.

•16. Take pictures and make a plaque acknowledging the donor’s contribution.

•17. Interview some of the beneficiaries and gather information to measure the effectiveness of the project on people’s lives, including how it changed nuns’ living conditions and local people’s attitudes and understandings.

•18. Write a detailed project final report including thank you letters, photos, interviews, project activities, and report of the benefits of the project.

•19. Submit the final report with photos and receipts.

Project Finances

The actual donor contribution is 38,818RMB, and local contribution is 2,400RMB, (41,218rmb total). The actual project cost is 41,313RMB.

In total, the actual project costs 95RMB more than the original budget. So the project manager paid 95RMB.

•n Shem women’s group paid this money

Here are the explanations of any major changes in the budgets:

•1. We have some money left after purchasing the Darma Wheel with two Deer on the roof of the nunnery, which were the original proposed purchases. As the change of the market saved two tickets to Lhasa to buy the stuff, we saved lots of money. Then we got the permission from the donor to buy the other necessities for the nunnery with the extra money. The things we bought from saved money were with this (*) mark.

•2. Management expenses, which is not shown in the original budget because the project manager unexpected. This item of expense is for communicating expenses with the leader nun to discuss the project, including transportation and phone bills.

Delays, Difficulties, and lessons learned

Delays

We delayed the date of final report for about three months. We expected it would be done in two months at least, but it took three months instead. There are three reasons for that:

•A) According to the local rule, the market of buying the dharma wheel and two deer was changed, so there was some extra money, which could buy other necessities for the prayer hall of the nunnery. Then after we got the permission from the donor, we ordered 600m Namyer (silk ceiling cloth), six Gemtsen (silk hanging), four Gaban (silk cloth), four Gaban Sirgao (golden head maxes), a throne carpet, a Sirtolk with two Gemtsen, three food pots and three tea pots, 102.26m white Qidar and yellow Qidar (laces), four pairs of locks, two rows of Sardan( carpet) , and the big rolls of gold paper for painting the prayer hall gate. In order to complete all the necessities, the smith took more time than we planned before.

•B) Samtsogye, the project manager received the funds for this project in early Feb, 2007, when all the local people are busy for preparing for the New Years Festival. At this time the nuns have to fast and chant scriptures, so we didn’t have time to start our project right away.

•C) Again, according to the local rule, there is a certain time to put the Darma wheel with two deer on the roof of the prayer hall and do the opening ceremony. This is usually done at both monastery and nunnery on the lunar June 4^th. However, from the end of the May, Samtsogye, the project manager, went abroad to get training until mid-Sept.

Difficulties

Over all, this project implementation was very successful. However,

1. According to the local rule, during the actual process of completing the project, we had to immediately find another market, which is different from Lhasa market. However, in this market we could purchase the appropriate Darma Wheel and other staff for the nunnery.

2. There is a certain time for the monastic communities to put Darma Wheel with two deer and Gemtsen on the roof of their prayer hall. In this case, we couldn’t take pictures of the gorgeous Darma Wheel with two deer and Gemtsen on the roof of their prayer hall.

3. After purchasing the Darma Wheel with two deer and Gemtsen on the local market, we had some money left, so we then bought lots of other stuff for the nunnery, such as throne carpet and ceiling clothing and gold paper for painting. All these things need time to be finished. We bought lots of necessities for the nunnery in the actual implementation. In order to write a comprehensive final project report, we needed to take a little longer time than we estimated in the proposal.

4. As the project manager is one of the full time staff of Shem Women’s Group, Samtsogye not only needed to look over other project managers’ proposals and final reports, but also was responsible for teaching the introductory gender class and the advanced gender class in English to the English Training Program’s students in Qinghai Normal University. Therefore, she needed to write the final report in her leisure time, which postponed the date of finishing the final report.

Lessons learned

During the implementation of the project, if there is a big change in the actual budget, we immediately need to contact the donor and have an agreement to meaningfully use this left money, and ask the beneficiaries what they need most at the moment. If the project is taking longer than we expected, we need to write an explanation to the donor. It is always good to contact both donor and the beneficiaries.

Interviews

Gongcholk Drolma (b1963), she is the head of Tawa Gongma Nunnery. She is very happy!!

She said that when she was young, she saw that many other old nuns in this nunnery, but they didn’t have long-term plans to rebuild the nunnery, even though, at that time the nunnery is shabby. Slowly these old nuns passed away, and the big burden of preserving the nunnery fell on Ani-Gongcholk Drolma’s shoulders. 10 years ago, she really realized that only reading scripture for the local people around Labrang is not enough, giving her the idea to make an adventurous trip to many places to read scriptures to as many other people as possible. In 1998, she went to the nearest big city, Lanzhou to fast and read scriptures to the families to earn some money, then come back to rebuild the nunnery. Slowly she met some compassionate people, who were willing to help these nuns have a real prayer hall. She spent most time outside of the nunnery, in Lanzhou or other Chinese cities to fast and read scriptures to accumulate money for buying the necessities for the nuns such as clothes and wheat flour. Ani-Gongcholk Drolma also stressed the rule of this nunnery that all the nuns should have the monastic education, rather than immediately becoming a nun.

Ani-Gongcholk Drolma welcomes women into the nunnery who attended school and know some Chinese and mathematics. Recently, she had a problem with her leg, causing her to limp all the time, but she devotes all of her energy to Tawa Gongma Nunnery, so that this nunnery is one of the best nunneries in Labrang. All of the nuns residing here are good at chanting, compassionate, and helpful to anyone.

Choldan Drolma&Tseyong Tsomo (b1953&b1955), they are two of the responsible nuns in this nunnery. They so happy that finally Tawa Gongma Nunnery has a nice, spacious prayer hall (to) for the nuns to gather together to do activities. With an improved nunnery, the local people will give them some donations, which is very important for the Tibetan monasteries and nunneries. Both of these nuns said that no local people cared about this nunnery or gave donations before because they didn’t have a real prayer hall where they could do activities together. This led many people to think that these nuns just spent their time doing nothing and therefore, the local people and other outside donors didn’t support the nuns in this nunnery. But now people see how great this nunnery is and give generous support to the nuns. These two nuns also said: ” Due to doing a lot of fasting, Ani- Rendzen Drolma, one of the oldest nuns in this nunnery is very sick recently. During the contracted work of rebuilding the nunnery, she was unable to contribute her physical labor, but she gave advice and support for the other nuns, and all of us cooperated together and completed the nunnery.”

They are very thankful for the donor, Kitty Makley, and praying that Kitty and her family receive good luck on everything.

Sangy Jia (b1945), he is one of the local people. From the beginning design stage of the project to the nuns’ implementation, he was very supportive. He said that these nuns really deserve and need the help from people. When he is walking on the street and sees the glimmering Drama Wheel with two deer and all the stuff on the roof of the prayer hall of the Tawa Gongma Nunnery, he feels happy and always prays for the people that helped these nuns. He also publicizes the nunnery to many other people. Recently, some head monks of the Labrang Monastery come to visit the nunnery and praised the hard work of the nuns and the amazing architecture of the new prayer hall.

Yontan Drolma (b1977), she is one of the young nun in this nunnery. She said that she became a nun because she really wants to practice Buddhism and have a peaceful life. When she first came to this nunnery, the neighbors were very mean to the nuns and they always looked down on the nuns. When the nuns began to rebuild the prayer hall, the neighbors didn’t believe that the nuns would succeed. When the nuns put stones and sands near to the neighbors’ yards, these local people didn’t let the nuns put things around their yards. The nuns had to be very careful to avoid bothering the neighbors. However, after the nuns constructed the new prayer hall, all the neighbors turned very nice to the nuns over night. Now the local people are proud that in their village there is such a beautiful nunnery.

Letter of appreciation

Scanned letter in Tibetan

Translation

Dear Kitty Makley,

Thank you very much for your generous help with this cultural preservation project. It has helped us a lot and made our life easier, especially as you allowed our prayer hall to be completed in a short time. Your donation encouraged us a lot. We are marginalized as women and Buddhist nuns in this area. However, after we finished rebuilding the nunnery, all the local people come to visit our prayer hall and even the head monks came and praised us, saying that our new prayer hall is superior and unmatched. You made all these things happen. This project is truly helpful. Even though this is the first nunnery in the area, we never received any attention or benefits from neither government nor charitable organization. This project has indirectly benefited not only women, but also many local people, religious pilgrims. This project is very meaningful and sustainable, and we want to say thank you and wish you all the best luck. We wish your work to move forward smoothly and successfully.

Tashi Delek

From all the Tawa Gongma Nunnery

Sept.22^nd, 2007.

Receipts

We were unable to get official receipts, because if we demanded official receipts, we needed to pay for them. All the business people we bought our things from are private businessmen, so they don’t have official receipts.

Receipt 1#

Receipt 2#

Receipt 3#

Receipt 4#

Receipt 5#

Original Proposal

View photos of project location

Read Samtsogye’s life story

Some of the Nuns of Tawa Gongma Nunnery

Project location
Tawa Gongma Nunnery is located in Tawa Gongma village , in the south of Xiahe County (historically known as Lhabrang), Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. Xiahe is 278 kilometers from Lanzhou, the provincial capital, and 290 kilometers from Xining, the capital of Qinghai Povince.

Lhabrang Background
Lhabrang is located in the southwest of Gansu province. It is a great religious center that attracts thousands of worshippers and tourists every year. In and around Lhabrang are six major religious centers: the Tantra monastery, the Lhabrang monastery, one Nyingma nunnery and two Sarma nunneries. Large-scale religious rituals are held in Lhabrang six times per year. Due to its religious significance, it is known as the “cultural art palace” of Buddhism, or “small Lhasa”. In addition to attracting locals from the 13 townships of Xiahe County, Lhabrang draws both Chinese and western tourists to its wide array of religious activities and the unique atmosphere of its monasteries-especially the Lhabrang monastery, which is the biggest yellow hat sect monastery in Amdo.

Tawa Gongma Nunnery (mtha’ ba gong ma’i jomo’i sgar) Background

Contributed by Professor Charlene Makley of Reed College

The Tawa Gongma nunnery, a small but thriving community of 51 young nuns living on a hill just east of the famous Geluk sect monastery of Lhabrang (founded 1709), protect a long historical legacy of their community there. However, since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the 1980s allowed some Tibetan Buddhist communities to re-establish themselves after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), these nuns are among the most marginalized of Buddhist practitioners in the Lhabrang valley (Xiahe County seat). Thus at present, in contrast to the two other nunneries in the valley, the Tawa Gongma nuns live cramped in tiny handmade homes on the hillside, with no plumbing or running water, and very few ways to earn money. Yet, under the guidance of their two head nuns, they persevere in training new young nuns in basic Tibetan literacy, and in carrying out their annual calendar of Buddhist rites in a tiny makeshift assembly hall erected on the spot where the original hall once stood. Charlene Makley, associate professor of anthropology at Reed College, who conducted ethnographic research among the Tawa Gongma nuns between 1992-2002, found that there were several reasons for this situation that were far beyond the nuns’ control.

For one, the Tawa Gongma nuns struggle, along with all nuns in Lhabrang, to find lay support against the deep-seated preference of Tibetan Buddhist laity for the ritual services of monks. This gender bias in Tibetan Buddhism has a long legacy, especially in places of Geluk sect monastic dominance like Lhabrang, yet Makley found that lay preferences for monks were even more marked under the 1980s reforms. In Tibetan regions, a lineage of fully ordained nuns was never established; all nuns in Tibet are thus technically novices. Nuns’ communities were never politically powerful as institutions the way monks’ communities could be, and their facilities were usually smaller and poorer appendages of those of monks. Tibetan nuns historically played social roles that reflected the ambiguous status of their renunciation. Nuns living in nun communities were often expected to maintain closer ties to their natal families than monks (i.e., in remaining subject to household labor obligations), and some women found ways to take vows and remain in the household. In addition, nuns had very different ritual relationships to the lay community than monks. They did not perform the crucial services for specific goals such as divination and chanting at various life events, especially funerals, provided by monks to lay households. Instead, lay investment in nuns’ activities required an exceptional generosity because nuns’ rites for laity represented more “unfocused merit-making” to benefit sentient beings in general. In such a context, the prestige and power of celibate monkhood in this region, and the crucial importance of women to the household economy explain why, despite a definite shortage of marriageable men locally, only a tiny minority of young, never-married women entered the monastic life.

Another reason for the relative marginality of the Tawa Gongma nuns in contemporary Lhabrang hinges on local history. This is because crucial state permissions and start-up funds for rebuilding in the 1980s depended on monastic communities’ claims to relative antiquity in the valley. Accounts of the number of nuns in Lhabrang prior to 1958 vary due to conflicting understandings of the histories of the nun communities there. Most young nuns in post-Mao Lhabrang came to join two Geluk nunneries that were affiliated with Lhabrang monastery by the reign of the fifth Jamyang Shepa (1916-1947), the ruling lama of Lhabrang. These were the Tawa Gongma Nunnery and the Hwontshang Hill Nunnery, situated on the hills just to the east and west of the monastery respectively. The Lhabrang nunneries, like most historically, had their own small groups of senior nuns who acted as teachers, mentors and administrators for younger nuns, and they were largely autonomous in the day-to-day running of the community. Indeed, they operated as separate assemblies modeled on the monk assemblies, with nun officials corresponding to the major monk officials in the assemblies, and their own calendars of ritual observances. Estimates of the combined population of those original communities on the eve of the Chinese Communist victory range from 80-100 nuns. Far overshadowed by the great prestige of Lhabrang monastery (with up to 4000 monks in its heyday), the history of those nun communities barely surfaces in histories of the monastery. What little has been written about them (a paragraph here and there) has been collected from oral histories and legends.

Makley found that in the 1990s many of the elder nuns had passed away, and the remaining nuns had to compete for precious state support as they tried to re-establish all-important links to prestigious patron lamas. The Hwontshang Hill Nunnery was able to monopolize the funds for rebuilding allocated to Lhabrang nuns by the state in the early 80s (about 18,000 yuan). Negotiations for state support for nuns in Lhabrang also allowed for the establishment of an entirely new community of Nyingma nuns there. When in the 1980s the Religious Affairs Bureau decided to recognize the Hwontshang Hill nunnery as the only nunnery for state support, a group of Nyingma nuns who had recently come to Lhabrang as devotees of a charismatic Nyingma lama there managed to gain state recognition as another “school” of the Hwontshang nunnery. In the 1990s, both the Hwontshang Hill Nunnery and the Nyingma Nunnery had elder nun representatives on the monastery’s “Democratic Management Committee”, the committee which after reforms was the most important liaison between monastic communities and the institutions of the state. Thus with concerted advocacy and fundraising efforts, the two communities were able to secure state and private funds to separately build beautiful assembly halls by the late 1990s.

In effect, the young nuns who came to join the Tawa Gongma Nunnery in the 80s and 90s, lacking the prestige of elder nuns and the support of local lamas, were cut out of state-supported rebuilding efforts. However, according to local Tibetan historians, the Tawa Gongma Nunnery was actually the most ancient nunnery in the valley . Those accounts state that the Tawa Gongma nunnery was established in 1781 by a nun from the Chedzong Lango region in Tshe (ch. Hezuo) with the support of the 2nd Jamyang Shepa, during the period in which he was engaged in greatly expanding the monastery’s facilities and influence. By contrast, the Hwontshang Hill Nunnery was very recent, having been established during the reign of the 5th Jamyang Shepa in 1925. In an interview with Makley in 1995, the two head nuns of Tawa Gongma Nunnery proudly spoke of this historical legacy, a link to the past they had heard about from elder nuns, since passed away, who had quietly lived there through the Maoist years. The head nuns insisted that they had stayed at their site even after post-Mao state officials only recognized the Hwontshang Hill Nunnery because the nunnery’s main lama, based at a Geluk monastery just north of Lhabrang, had admonished them to stay and protect the historical legacy of the 2nd Jamyang Shepa.

A final reason for the relative marginality of the Tawa Gongma nunnery in contemporary Lhabrang has to do with the intensifying tensions under reforms between young rural Tibetan women’s aspirations and the needs of their households. Makley found that in the 1990s and early 2000s, unprecedented numbers of young women were leaving rural regions to seek opportunities for work and education in urbanizing places like Lhabrang valley (the Xiahe County seat). They did this even as Tibetan households often chose to keep daughters home to hold up the household subsistence economy while sons were sent to become monks, or to seek secular education or wage labor in the increasingly competitive market economy. In this context, Tibetan Buddhist nunneries in Lhabrang, especially because as Geluk nunneries they were often perceived by nuns to offer more equal opportunities for Buddhist education than Nyingma nunneries, held out one of the only viable options for rural women to find community and education outside of rural households and arranged marriages. Thus, even as numbers of young monks dwindled into the late 1990s, numbers of nuns have increased dramatically relative to nun populations before.

According to Makley’s estimates, there were about 200 nuns affiliated with the Lhabrang nun communities in 1995, at least 80% of whom were under the age of 40. This was over twice the number of nuns reportedly living in Lhabrang just prior to the Communist victory in 1949. Most young nuns in Lhabrang are from relatively impoverished Amdo farming regions outside the Lhabrang valley in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, or in Tibetan regions in northern Sichuan and southern Qinghai provinces. In 1995, there was a housing shortage for such new nuns, and many lived with nun roommates, or rented spaces in lay households.

In the contemporary context then, Makley found that all nuns in Lhabrang had to face intensifying scrutiny and gossip from local laity and monks because they were uniquely visible as young women who were opting out of crucial household labor. The Tawa Gongma nuns were particularly susceptible to this because they lacked the mitigating prestige of state support and a local lama. Thus, even though, like the other nun communities, the Tawa Gongma nuns enforced strict rules concerning public behavior, they had to endure frequent local gossip about their motivations and capacities for serious learning. These factors, along with intensifying competition among Tibetan ritual specialists for dwindling lay support under market reforms, meant that the Tawa Gongma nuns were at the bottom of locals’ priorities, forcing most to rely for subsistence on meager contributions from family members, begging, or physically taxing fasting services. Yet their perseverance and integrity in maintaining their nunnery and seeking out new educational opportunities from lamas is a testament to the power of rural Tibetan women’s aspirations in the face of social and economic obstacles.

Population
There are approximately 50,000 people in Lhabrang city. In Tawa Gongma nunnery there are 51 nuns. The youngest nun is 13 years old, and the oldest is 56. The majority of the nuns are 30-50 years old.

Education
Almost all of the nuns in the Tawa Gongma nunnery have had some formal education. Of the 51 nuns, 41 hav e graduated from primary school and 20 have attended some middle school. There are five nuns who have no f ormal schooling, but who learned how to read and write in the nunnery. In addition, all of the nuns have furthered their education in the nunnery. All of the nuns are literate and can fluently chant all kinds of Tibetan scripture. This is a big accomplishment. However, the nun’s talent for reading scriptures goes unrecognized because the local people never ask the nuns to chant in their homes. In this area, people believe that asking the nuns to read the scripture is a shameful thing, and instead they always ask monks to chant. By chanting scriptures, the monks can earn 20 rmb per day, receive three free meals and free transportation.

Cash income
Most of the nuns in Tawa Gongma nunnery make barely enough money to survive. The cost of fuel, food, medicine, water, and electricity per person per year is about 350 RMB. This figure includes only enough money for two meals per day. The average nun is able to make about 420 RMB per year through fasting rites, begging, and family support. At the end of the year, the nuns use whatever money they have leftover to purchase clothing for themselves and food for the Losar (new year) celebration.

The hardworking nuns earn this small amount of money in two very harsh ways: The first is by begging. Every month, the nuns go to surrounding villages to beg for small amounts of money, food, or anything else that generous families may be willing to give. Unfortunately, the townspeople people often scold them and say that they beg out of laziness. People also say that they have become nuns because they don’t want to do housework, or cannot find husbands or have some physical problems such as blindness, or deafness. When they g o out begging, they are mistreated by village children, who throw rocks at them and poke them with sticks. The children get bad ideas about the nuns from their families. W idespread prejudice against the nuns leads to fewer and fewer families who are willing to give donations to them.

The second way that the nuns earn money is by performing a religious ritual called ‘Nongnay’ (fasting) to earn money. Compared to the monks of Lhabrang, the nuns have very few opportunities to earn money for performing religious rituals. N ongnay is a ritual that monks do not perform, and thus it has become the nuns’ chief source of income . When performing Nongnay, the nuns do not eat, drink, or speak for two entire days. After practicing this ritual, the nuns can earn some money. Usually, rich families give them 10-13rmb per ritual and poor families give them 5rmb. Practicing this religious ritual on a regular basis causes many health problems for the nuns. They are very susceptible to diseases and are often sick. In addition, they usually have very low energy, look much older than their age, and almost all of the n uns are unhealthily under weight. Over the past 10 years, more than half of the nuns, including Ani Rakzen Droma, the leader of the nunnery, have contracted serious illnesses that required them to stay in bed. Ma ny of the villagers believe that these sicknesses are a direct result of practicing Nongnay, but the nuns have no choice but to do the ritual. When a family asks the nuns to practice Nognay, they must concede, because this is one of the only ways that they have to earn money for survival. In addition, they are afraid that if they were to refuse, it would increase the prejudice and rumors against them, and people would say that the nuns don’t want to help others.

Because they barely make enough money to survive, their natal families support them by donating small amounts of food, butter, cheese, or oil. They also receive an average of 150 rmb per nun per year from their families.

Agriculture
The nuns themselves do not have any fields. Their families do, however, and these fields create the income that partially supports them. A rich family has about 7mu of land, with which they can earn 2,000 rmb per year, and a poor family has about 4 to 5 mu, with which they can earn about 1000rmb per year.

Herding
Some of the nuns’ families also raise livestock. The average nun’s family owns one donkey, two pigs, two cows and 50 sheep. By selling the mature livestock and offspring, and the dairy products that these animals produce, they can earn between 800 to 2500rmb rmb per year, depending on how many family members are working to raise the livestock. This amount of money is used to support the entire family, and to support the daughter in the nunnery. Usually, each family gives 150 rmb per year to the nunnery, in addition to small amounts of butter cheese, and oil. Most families are large, with more than ten people, and some families also have to pay tuition for children in school. Hence, the families’ living conditions are very poor.

Weather
The weather in Xiahe county is usually cold. In our hometown there is no clear distinction between spring, winter, summer and autumn. Most months are winter. In July the weather is little bit hot, but after that people cannot say goodbye to their sheep skin robes. Because of the cold weather, the nuns spend abou t 170rmb per person per year on fuel (firewood and yak dung). The cold winter also makes the nun’s lives difficult because it makes it difficult for them to go outside to beg and earn money.

Project Goals and Benefits

The overall goal of this project is to preserve the cultural traditions of the Tawa Gongma nunnery

The immediate goal of this project is to complete the rebuilding of the Tawa Gongma Nunnery’s prayer hall by purchasing a Dharma wheel with two deer

Problems

Difficulties rebuilding Prayer hall

As mentioned in the Background, the Tawa Gongma Nunnery is the oldest nunnery in the Lhabrang area, built by the first reincarnation of Jamyang Shepa. Unfortunately, for reasons explained earlier, as time has passed, there have been no governmental or private funds allocated to the development of this nunnery.

Despite all of the difficulties that they currently face, the Tawa Gongma nuns have nearly finished rebuilding their prayer hall. They have taken on this project out of necessity, for they could not continue to practice in their old building, which was nothing more than a dirt yard covered by a flimsy roof. For years, they used this hut as an assembly and prayer hall despite the fact that it was exposed to all of the elements during the cold, snowy winter months and the rainy season. Because they did not have a proper meeting hall, the nuns did not have a place where they could convene and practice. This caused a great strain on their small community and also led to a loss of respect and recognition in the larger community. In 2003, in the face of so many difficulties and so little progress, they nearly gave up and disbanded their nunnery. However, at the urging of their Lama, they decided not only to continue, but to rebuild their main prayer hall.

Although they did not have the funds needed to cover the cost of building this prayer hall, the nuns asked for 1,000 rmb from each of their families, and took out a loan from the bank.

Progress on the building was very slow, first, due to a lack of funds, and second, because the nuns had to carry the building materials (water, stone, sand, and earth) from the main street to the building site using the icy, muddy, footpath that leads to their nunnery. Locals refused to help the nuns carry building materials because it was too dangerous due to the terrible conditions of this footpath. So the nuns themselves carried the materials, but several of them were injured after slipping and falling on the footpath.

Now they have nearly finished building the simple prayer hall, and need to decorate the structure with the appropriate adornments. Unlike the surrounding Lhabrang religious centers, which are decorated with elaborate Thangka paintings, and valuable Buddha images, the prayer hall built by the Tawa Gongma nuns is very simple, designed only to meet their most basic needs.

Unfortunately, the nuns’ funding has now been completely exhausted and they cannot afford to purchase the one adornment necessary to complete any Tibetan Buddhist temple, the Dharma wheel and two deer. This adornment is necessary for any Tibetan Buddhist temple, and the nuns prayer hall will not be complete, or appropriate for ceremonies, worship, or religious practice, until it has this decoration.

In order to understand the importance of this decoration, we have included here an explanation from the Dharma Chakra Center (http://www.rumtek.org/mn/mn01.php):

Legend holds that after the Buddha attained enlightenment, he retired to an isolated place. While sitting there in meditation, he was approached by the great gods Brahma, holding a golden wheel with a thousand spokes, and Indra, bearing a white, right-turning conch shell. They offered these objects, requesting teachings on the holy dharma. Buddha said he would turn the wheel of the dharma in three stages. Just then two deer emerged from the nearby forest and gazed directly at the wheel. To commemorate this first turning of the wheel, a dharma wheel and a pair of deer, male and female, sit atop every Buddhist temple and monastery. The wheel symbolizes the Buddha’s teachings, and the deer, representing Brahma and Indra, students. The stance of the deer is also significant: their up-turned faces symbolize listening, their attentive gaze reflection, and their reclining posture, meditation.

The golden, eight-spoked Dharma Wheel, flanked by two deer, above the Johkhang temple in Lhasa . The spokes of the wheel represent the Eight-fold Path (to enlightenment) and the deer serve as a reminder that Buddha gave his first sermon in a deer park . http://www.imperialtours.net/jokhang.htm

Solution
The goal of this project is to purchase a dharma wheel and two deer, thus completing the Tawa Gonmga nunnery’s new prayer hall, elevating the nuns’ status within the Lhabrang community, and validating and preserving the cultural practices of the oldest nunnery in the Lhabrang valley

Gender equality
This project has been designed by, and will be implemented and managed by and for local Tibetan women. In addition, it will benefit the most marginalized members of the Lhabrang community-the Tawa Gongma nuns. In my hometown people generally don’t respect women, especially nuns. Nuns are considered lower than laywomen. Most people think that the nuns have become nuns to avoid housework or because they could not find a husband. This project will reconnect the nuns to the rest of the community and create a bridge between the nuns and local people, worshippers, and visitors. Completing the prayer hall of the Tawa Gongma nunnery will validate the work that these women are doing and their way of life.

Government support
On January 18 th, 2006, Samtsogye and Ani Gonqok (the head of the Tawa Gongma Nunnery) met with Tserang Tashi, the county leader, to discuss this project. He gave full permission to go forward with this project and encouraged it because it would improve the terrible conditions of the Tawa Gongma Nuns.

Steps of the project

• Hold a meeting to discuss urgent needs and gather information for project proposal (already completed).

• Discuss project costs with Zhai xi Gamtso , the monk who is in charge of buying deer and Dharma wheel for the Lhabrang monastery (Already completed).

• Secure donor funding.

• Hold a meeting with the nuns and discuss project implementation.

· Samstogye, the project manager and (GongChok Droma) Travel to Lhasa to buy the deer. ( Lhasa is the nearest and only city where these decorations can be purchased)

· Sign contract with the seller guaranteeing the quality of the decorations, Purchase the decorations.

· Samtsogye and GongChok Droma transport the decorations back to Lhabrang

· The Tawa Gongma nuns attach the dharma wheel and deer to the roof of their new prayer hall

· Interview local people (children, men and women) and nuns.

· Take pictures

· Write final report

• Send final report with all pictures and receipts.Timeframe

This project will take 20 days to complete:

Detailed budget

The total amount requested from the donor is 40, 000 RMB, or $5,145

Donor contribution:

Local contribution

All of the local contribution will be given by the nuns 1 . There are 50 nuns with families who can contribute money, and each family will give 48 rmb towards the project. In total, the nuns will contribute 2,400rmb in cash to this project to cover the cost of transportation to and from Lhasa to purchase the Dharma wheel and two deer.

Local Contribution

Sustainability
This project is very sustainable, because the Tawa Gongma nuns will take care of the Dharma wheel with two deer after the project is completed. Based on previous experience, we know that if maintained well, the Darma wheel and deer purchased in Lhasa will last more than 50 years. Also wheels and deer purchased in Lhasa are of the best quality, so they will remain in excellent condition for a minimum of 50 years

Additional information

Previous projects completed by Samtsogye

Samtsogye has successfully completed 5 small-scale development projects in Lhabrang County . In 2002, 2003, and 2004, she completed three second-hand clothing projects organized by Sue Bishop at the British Consulate in Shanghai . In total, she distributed second-hand clothing to over 200 people. In 2005, she implemented a solar cooker project supported by the Canada fund, bringing 45 solar cookers to the monks of Lhabrang Monastery who did not have any family support or source of food and fuel. Most recently, in March of 2006, a private donor provided support for Samtsogye to distribute 14 solar cookers to the Nuns of Tawa Gongma Nunnery.

Photos

This is the location of the nunnery; the workers are building with simple tools like ropes and wood. This photo was taken in August of 2005. There is not enough money to hire modern machines for building, and the nuns could only afford to hire three inexperienced workers to help them. Hence, the work was slow and difficult.

This picture was taken in August of 2005, after one month of work rebuilding the nunnery. These are the building materials that the nuns have carried up the footpath on their backs.

Ani-Gonqodroma (right) and Ani-Rinzenroma (left) are the two leaders of Tawa Gongma Nunnery. This picture was taken after they had just finished carrying stones up to the building site and were discussing where to put the rest of the building materials. Right now, Ani-Rinzendroma is sick because of practicing Nongnay (fasting) and working to rebuild the nunnery at the same time.

The Tawa Gongma nuns work together to thresh Sere, a Tibetan plant, for the roof of their new prayer hall.

Ani Tsoma separates the threshed Sere plant.

They are working energetically.

Ani -Tsoma and Ani-Dejie are working.

The nun wearing a yellow hat is the youngest. She is only thirteen. She participates in every activity that the nuns do, and also helped with construction.

The youngest nun and her mentor