Imagine what goes in the hearts of all those children, who spend their entire year studying hard in school and during holidays, in the midst of all the excitement they become silent, expecting someone to come for them.
Unwillingly they spend their holidays in school, with the hope that someday, someone will come with an open arm to take them to one memorable vacation. This gripping emotion of unwanted and desolateness is the worst nightmare for all the growing children, yet we assume that nothing has gone wrong with what is happening to the psychic of all those children, who came from Tibet with the hope of receiving education in India.
It wouldn’t be such a big issue, if we are talking only about the grown up children, but when it comes to young children the amount of psychological trauma associated to this kind of behavior would be unimaginable because growing child needs more care, love and concern, they usually breed well when there is affection and compassion in the surrounding.
Scientifically, proven that growing child needs utmost care and love, they want the feeling of love and appreciation by their near and dear ones, they want to be cared and loved in a right way so that their development in both mental and physical level can be achieved adequately. Nurturing a young child is like gardening, where any laps in care and concentration could prove disastrous in the overall development of both the child and the flower. Therefore it needs proper concern and above all compassion to create the necessary environment for the proper development of the children, so that when the individuals grow up he or she will have all the right qualities of a good person.
There are so many young children studying in the schools of India, who left their parents at home in Tibet and came to India against their will to get education and to enjoy some level of freedom which they didn’t have in Tibet, but during every winter break, when they see some of their friend leave for a holiday, they cry silently and behind it leaves a psychological scar that reflects all the way in child’s behavior from an early age. To most of the child concerned association; this is one critical issue and should be dealt in a proper way to bring about normal development in children and their overall personality.
“We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.”
“If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love others. You will not be able to love others.
If you have no compassion for yourself then you are not able of developing compassion for others.”
(H.H the Dalai Lama)
On a personal note, I was also brought up in a boarding school and like any other child I used to eagerly wait for the approaching winter break and I used to plan everything in advance from the school itself. Every break is treated with utter excitement and there goes lots of preparation and sleepless nights, in which I can imagine, what would have happened if my parents hadn’t come to escort me for my holidays,
I would be shattered and numbed by that feeling of uncared or unloved. Hence I believe that poor children from Tibet who are currently studying in India must be feeling the same. School, as we know is the place where we get the most important knowledge and education that serves the foundation of better life, but this doesn’t mean that we should compromise with love and care that the growing child deserves. Young children need care more than education, they need appreciation more than the rewards and most importantly they need someone to back them, someone who will give them a sense of security and a sense of concern. These according are more essential than the education as in the case of early childhood.
It is in the alignment of the above feeling that most of the children who came through the hierarchy of such a school life knows all that, which is why now they are opening their arms and spreading it over to those children who in some ways are the reflection of their school life. These dedicated people who are now a grown man are receiving some poor children, who have no relatives India and who have nowhere else to go during breaks in the background of their own yard and giving all the love and care that they didn’t have when they were in school.
The work that they are doing is exemplary and highly inspiring, each year they sell lottery, donation and generate marginal income and the money that they have earned will be used for those children. Some of them will get a family for a month or so, their vacation is planned in such a way that they are sure to enjoy most part of it, the whole duration of vacation is divided into two parts, where first the children will spend half of their stay in Kathmandu and then in Pokhara, Nepal. During their stay in Nepal, each student is well received and warmly embraced by a kind family who look after them and give them their deserved attention and affection.
The kids are taken for instance to shopping malls where they purchase items of their choices, visit cinema halls for some blockbuster movies, picnicking in some of the green and beautiful spots in Kathmandu valley to name some. The concerned associations have brought smiles and light up their spirits in these children who face feeling of being alone in an alien land far away from the watchful eyes of their parents and relatives in Tibet.
The Ex TCV and Ex Mossurie students are doing what every Tibetan refugee should do, This act of kindness and concern is what I consider to be the greatest knowledge that one could get only when the feeling of others are over the self. You truly put in practice the motto of your school, others before self. You people are the true holders of the essence of Buddhism. We on behalf of Bodrigpunda Association salute you for your extraordinary work. In the future, we would be glad to extend our helping hands to help you in your selfless endeavor.
compiled by Team Bodrigpunda
