Launch of the Csoma Scholarship

The staircase restoration completed!

After a strenuous week we completed the new staircase. Third layer of clay placed on the roof, dense red clay colored twigs made the finish of the porch and the wooden structure also got its red clay paint. >>>

Staircase walls and roof structure finished, short visit to Dzongkul

After some serious effort the new walls of the staircase are standing, and the wooden roof-structure is ready. Last weekend visited the Zangla nunnery school on their picnic at the riverside, and payed a short visit to Dzongkul monastery, the birthplace of the essays published by Csoma as Alexander books. >>>

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Launch of the Csoma Scholarship

2008-10-03

We are building not only walls in Zangla, but also human relationships with the local community. Among them, only few had been familiar with the story of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, which is our common cultural heritage and source of inspiration.

To commemorate the great traveler, we have founded a scholarship, which enables students who graduated from the 8-class school of Zangla to continue their studies. Many of them can not afford to go to high school, because they must move to another town to do so – just as Csoma had to.

We organized a committee for monitoring the scholarship, consisting of the wise men of the village. After a huge dinner and some chang (local barley beer) the committee decided on 3 students to receive the Csoma scholarship from next March. A few days later, we had a chance to meet the children who were shy and thankful, and had a hard time believing that we have chosen their little village and personally them to sponsor in their studies. Which shows one of the important points of the education program – to build confidence in the villagers of Zangla, as well as in us Hungarians, through cultural dialogue.

Apart from the scholarship, next year we would like to come to Zangla with volunteer teachers who would teach English communication and also the story of Csoma in the local governmental and nunnery schools. Both schools suffer from an acute lack of teachers, and the children are often left without supervision – in Ladakh no one really cares about the education of those who don`t go to private schools.

Of course, we plan to involve the adult villagers in the dialogue as well, and make it beneficial for both sides. By getting to know each others` cultures, we become closer to our own roots, too.