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Olmo Ling Compassionate Outreach Projects
Tempa Lama and the Olmo Ling community have established several compassionate outreach projects. These projects provide an opportunity to share our wisdom and compassion and manifest the Bon spiritual teachings of compassion and liberation from suffering through our actions.
Read more about the Olmo Ling Compassionate Outreach Projects below:- Nepal Earthquake Relief Project
- Humla Medical Service Trip and Humla Education Fund
- Nursing Education Project
- Menri Roof Restoration Project
- Music for Menri
- Menri Monastery | Public Restroom Project
- Menri Monastery’s Nun Flood Repair
Nepal Earthquake Relief Project
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurred less than 50 miles from Kathmandu, Nepal, on Saturday Apr 25, 2015. Buildings are destroyed, leaving many thousands homeless and without access to electricity, water, and food. Your donations continue to be urgently needed to help us continue our efforts in the hardest hit villages and in Kathmandu.
Project 1: Relief Efforts in Remote Villages:
Our team is providing tents, blankets, mattresses, food and water to more than 1,200 villagers in Bhimtar, Gatlang, Shermathang, Bari, Sankhu and Bhote Chaur (read more…). These villages close to the epicenter of the earthquake are almost completely destroyed and villagers are in urgent need of shelter with the Monsoon season approaching. Governmental relief efforts in these villages have been hindered by their remoteness and the destruction of roads leading to the villages.
Project 2: Helping Young Families and Hospitals in Kathmandu: With your generous support we are able to help several young families in Kathmandu to resettle, bringing the gift of hope (read more…). Our team is also visiting the area’s hospitals with urgently needed provisions of water and medicine.
The Humla district of Nepal is one of the world’s most remote areas. A land of incredible natural beauty and rich cultural diversity, the people of Humla have faced many challenges entering into the modern era. A lack of health care and education has created a cycle of poverty in many of the villages, making Humla one of the poorest districts in all of Nepal.
Tempa Lama and Clinic Team Leaders Heidi Harding, LAc. & Tim Aitken, LAc. will lead a medical service trip to Humla during September 13-26, 2015. The trip offers the opportunity for doctors, nurses, acupuncturists, herbalists, chiropractors, massage therapists and lay people to share their wisdom and compassion through the delivery of no-cost, high quality health care.
The medical service trip will serve as the seed for the larger Humla Education Fund. Income from the trip will help us conduct the initial assessment of how we can best establish a sustainable program of supporting access to education for the children of Humla and improving the current school system by adding much needed functions such as learning the native language and culture and training in computer literacy.
Olmo Ling Nursing Education Project
Tempa Lama wants to help educate talented young people in Humla as nurses to begin offering sustained health care services in this remote valley. The Humla region of northwestern Nepal is one of the most stunningly beautiful, as well as, geographically isolated and underserved, areas of Nepal. Healthcare resources are scarce, with only one hospital in a region the size of Connecticut and a population of over 50,000. Many villages lack even a single trained healthcare worker, forcing villagers to walk days to access basic health services.
The Nursing Education Project addresses this need by identifying local students in Humla who aspire to careers in nursing in their home villages. We cover the costs of tuition, books, and other supplies throughout their education in exchange for a commitment to serving the Humla region as community healthcare workers. The cost of 4 years of education in the capital city, Kathmandu, is less than the cost of a semester at US public universities.
Menri Roof Restoration Project
Join us in supporting the replacement of the roof for the Large Monks’ Dormitory at Menri Monastery, the main center of the Tibetan Bon tradition. We have raised $15,000 out of the required $27,600. Help us to raise the remaining $12,600!
Situated in Dolanji in the mountains of Northern India, Menri Monastery is the main spiritual center of the Tibetan Bon tradition in exile. Menri offers a home to hundreds of monks, nuns, and Tibetan children, and the opportunity for monks and nuns to study within the Bon system of higher education toward the Geshe (doctor of philosophy) degree. The dormitory, home to about 100 Bon monks, has a simple concrete roof and has developed serious leakage in several places. A number of monks’ rooms have moldy ceilings and walls and have become unusable.
Thanks to a generous large gift received in 2014 the monastic center has been able to purchase materials and begin the roof replacement. Your donation will help us raise the remaining $12,600 to complete the roof replacement.
Music for Menri
Directed by Olmo Ling chant leader Eileen Nadzam, Music for Menri provides Western instruments and music lessons to nuns in the Renla Menling Nunnery at Menri Monastery, India, as well as Western music education for students in the Menri Monastery school. Eileen is also building an extensive collection of transcriptions of Bon chants and other sacred music into Western notation to support their preservation for future generations.
Recently, Music for Menri received a donation of six violins. At this time, incoming donations will be used to carry out some minor required repairs to these instruments and transport them to Menri.
Menri Monastery hosts many visitors from Western countries as well as local visitors from nearby villages, towns, and cities throughout the year. Menri also celebrates many larger public events with hundreds of visitors, including empowerment, religious celebrations, prayer ceremonies, holiday festivals, and the annual Geshe (Doctor of Philosophy) graduation.
The lack of a public restroom is causing great difficulties during large public gatherings. It has also proven to be very challenging for villagers who visit for the day, including children and the elderly.
The central government of India is now requiring any community or monastic center where people gather to have a functioning public restroom. The construction of a public restroom at Menri Monastery will not only support cleanliness and public health but also protect the well-being and health of the monastic community.
We feel deeply honored to be invited to offer our assistance. This project will be instrumental in supporting public health and ensuring the comfort of visitors who benefit from the blessings and teachings offered at Menri. By addressing this very mundane need we are able to offer a sacred and precious gift.
Thanks to the support of the Olmo Ling Community in 2022 we were able to reach our goal of $38,212.00 to send funds to Menri Monastery to build their much-needed public restroom.
Menri Monastery’s Nunnery Flood Repair
July 2023, parts of Northern India – including the state of Himachal Pradesh where Menri is located – experienced the highest Monsoon rainfall in decades, resulting in severe flooding and landslides. At the end of his visit to Olmo Ling, Geshe Tsewang Ngodup – general secretary of the Yungdrung Bon Monastic Center at Menri Monastery – asked for our assistance with necessary repairs following the recent flash floods and landslides.
A landslide has damaged and blocked the dirt road that provides access to the nunnery. The Menri monastic community is responsible for this road as it is on land owned by the monastery. Menri is asking for our help to carry out urgently needed repairs and tree replanting so that vehicles can again access the nunnery, the hillsides can be stabilized, and further building damages are avoided.
The total repair and tree planting costs for hillside stabilization are estimated at $39,900. Besides Olmo Ling, other Bon communities worldwide are all contributing towards raising the required amount. Every gift, large or small, is important and will be gratefully received by the nuns!
Thanks to our community, Tempa Lama presented our gift of $2,121.63 to the nunnery during this trip to Menri Monastery in November 2023.