Miss Tenzin Zomkey is een Belgische studente van Tibetaanse origine, en één van de finalisten bij de verkiezing van Miss Exclusive 2019. Ze werd in september 2001 geboren te Mundgod, een Tibetaanse kolonie in India, in een gezin van landbouwers. Miss Tenzin Zomkey is de eerste Tibetaanse en jongste finaliste ooit bij een Europese missverkiezing. Het is haar doel om Tibetaanse jongeren te motiveren om uit hun schelp te komen, te glanzen onder de schijnwerpers, hen te inspireren tot een groter doel, en Tibetaanse jongeren te laten zien wat ze kunnen bereiken met de nodige ambitie. Ze wil jongeren motiveren om verantwoordelijk te zijn en het initiatief te nemen om een bijdrage te leveren aan onze samenleving.

The Himalaya Club heeft Miss Tenzin Zomkey als ambassadrice van de Tibetaanse cultuur gesponsord en gesteund in haar ambities om verkozen te worden tot Miss Exclusive. We zijn overtuigd dat dit andere Tibetaanse jongeren kan inspireren om ambitieus te zijn en hun dromen waar te maken.

In many developing countries, poverty is a very big issue and most of the time, it directly affects children. Many children are deprived from the most basic rights such as going to school, and even if some children who are able to go to school in the first place, they have to discontinue because of the poor financial home situation. Children are the future of any country and if they are given an opportunity to proper education and privileges, they can grow up to become the ones that can develop their nation.

The Himalaya Club supports the less fortunate inhabitants of the Himalayan region by mostly helping them with medical issues. This time, it has been decided that we will support the education of two very talented and deserving boys from Bhutan, Tenzin Tsewang and Tenzin Nyima. A short description about them and their situation will further describe why our support would mean a lot to them.

Tenzin Tsewang

Tsewang is from Thimphu and he is currently pursuing his studies in ninth grade at Yangchenphug Higher Secondary School in Thimphu (see cover photo). He is very intelligent, talented and is much capable of acquiring a bright future. However, his family is facing financial problems support him with his future studies. Tenzin has a younger brother and sister, both are currently studying in eighth grade. Their parents got separated, hence all three children live with, and are looked after by, their mother. She sells Tibetan cookies for a living, from which she cannot earn a big amount of money. Looking after three children single handedly is not an easy job with such a low income. She has been working very hard to provide her children with every facility and education. She says; “I am uneducated but I will educate my children to my best ability”.

As of Tsewang, he is a very bright kid and has a great future ahead if he will be able to complete his study. But looking at his mother working so hard for him and his siblings, he plans to drop out of school and give a hand to his mother’s work. However, his mother disagrees with his choice and tells him that he should study until he gets a decent job. She has a very bold behavior and strong determination, her only wish is to educate all her children.

Tenzin Nyima

Nyima was born in Thimphu and is thirteen years old. Currently he studies in the seventh grade in a government school in Thimphu. The school where he studies is administrated by the Tibetan Government, and provides education to those students who come from a poor family background. Nyima also belongs to a poor family. His parents don’t have regular jobs and incomes and earn very low wages, due to which the standard of their living is not very good. Nyima has an elder sister who is two years older than he is. She is currently studying in tenth grade and she recently took the CBSE board examination. Her parents are looking forward to the exam results.

The school provides certain facilities to the students such as free hostel, food and other necessary school accessories. Even though the school provides most of the necessities for Nyima and his sister, his parents still come across shortages of money for both kids. They are trying by every possible means to provide the necessary facilities to their children. Both parents think that achieving good education is very important in life and that is why they are working very hard in order to support their children to complete their studies.

Both of the boys are very talented and deserve to receive good education so they can be successful in life and take good care for their parents in the future. A little support from The Himalaya Club will prove to be a great help for these boys in Bhutan and therefore we hope that they can continue with their studies and achieve great success in their lives.

Resto du Coeur offers a welcoming and cozy space for the less fortunate and those who live in great poverty. With the aim to respond to their nutritional needs, to tackle the whole of their social problems and to find the appropriate solutions.

The assignment is filled in as far as possible preventively: an attempt is made to prevent an aggravation of the situation or a further social down-grade among which the persons concerned suffer. The action focuses both on the social context causing the poverty as well as on the respective victims.

The Himalaya Club donates food surpluses to Resto du Coeur on a regular basis so that they can be used to feed the hungry stomachs of the homeless.

Read more about Resto Du Coeur on their website: www.restosducoeur.be

BIKAS, Nepalese for “development and progress”, is a Belgian non-profit organization (NGO) that builds schools, hospitals, roads and other basic infrastructure in Nepal. BIKAS carries out these sustainable development projects together with the local population, and with respect for the local culture. BIKAS consists of a large team of volunteers that actively provide help and travel to Nepal to build projects.

One of these projects is the Haku-project. Haku is a remote village of 3200 people in the Himalaya-mountains north of Kathmandu, that was completely devastated by the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. More than a hundred people died, even more people went missing, houses got destroyed and even went up in flames, schools and hospitals collapsed, meadows and fields were washed away, cattle died… The only thing that remained were shattered dreams…

Because the village was so remote, aid organizations such as Red Cross did not manage to provide help to the inhabitants of Haku Exactly for that reason, Bikas focused on this village. From mid-2015 until now BIKAS has been reconstructing the entire village, together with the local community. Right after the earthquake, BIKAS provided food and life supplies , clothing, blankets, mattresses etc. for the inhabitants of Haku.

In a second phase, temporary shelters and schools were built, the electricity was restored and scholarships were found to help the inhabitants to survive. Temporary shelters have the advantage that they can be built very fast for a low budget, but also that they give the authorities the necessary time to inspect where permanent housing can be reconstructed. The underground has become unstable in many places after the earthquake. In total 57 temporary houses have been built. BIKAS also worked with other organizations to prevent child victims being smuggled and sold as slaves or child brides.

The inhabitants from Haku have recovered materials from their destructed house to build walls, and stay warm inside their temporary houses on the cold Himalaya mountains. This is the preferred solution since materials are very difficult to transport up to the village of Haku in the Himalaya mountains, where there are no roads. In the Himalaya mountains temperatures easily drop below zero, and thanks to these temporary houses, many families no longer have to live under a plastic sail in the freezing cold.

By January 2018, the first new school in the village is ready. Next step is to build the toilets (see picture below). After that a second school will be built in the next village, one hour away.

On 3 June 2018 BIKAS is organising a concert in Leuven, to raise funds for the Haku-project. The Himalaya Club will sponsor BIKAS by offering our delicious wok dishes at their event and donating all profit to the Haku-project in Nepal. We are happy to contribute to the reconstruction of the Haku village.

Tshering Pemo was born to Mr. Dorji Wangchuck on 6th June 1989 in Bhutan. She now lives with her father in a small village called Shingkhar located in Ura Valley of Bumthang district in Bhutan. She was born in a very poor family and her mother passed away at quite a young age. Tshering is now 29 years old and she has been suffering from Spinal Stenosis for almost a decade. She was diagnosed with this condition in 2009. Spinal stenosis is an abnormal narrowing of the spinal canal or neural foramen that results in pressure on the spinal cord or nerve roots. The symptoms started while Tshering was in elementary school, it was then when her right foot developed into a neuropathic foot ulcer. Until the time she completed her secondary school (12th standard), there was a persistent pain. Because of the unbearable pain, she had to undergo amputation in 2012. She has been using prostheses ever since the amputation of her right leg.

Life is very difficult for Tshering because she cannot walk properly with these prostheses. Because of least amount of movement, she has been putting up body weight gradually which is causing increased pressure on the amputated leg. As a result of the pressure on the amputated leg, she has got pressure wounds due to which every movement means pain for her. Furthermore, due to the pressure on the amputated leg, Tshering tries putting more force on the left leg, which as a consequence has turned into a club foot. It is a condition where the affected leg turns inwards, and the heel is smaller than normal. Before it’s too late and the conditions turn even worse, Tshering is looking for better prostheses and treatment for the left clubfoot.

The Himalaya Club, as its first priority, has decided to help Tshering receive good treatment for both her legs. She will be provided with financial support for the required treatment and recovery. Helping Tshering Pemo is one more approach of The Himalaya Club towards its Good Cause by helping her lead a normal and happy life once again.

Penjore was born on June 3rd 2008 in the village of Khasadrapchu, Bhutan, and is now 9 years. Tshering has one brother and one sister, and is the second child. His father is a driver for a tourist company in Bhutan. His mother is a housewife, and takes care of Tshering and his brother and sister. The family has to live from a small income and is very poor. Tshering is in class 2 at this moment, and goes to the public school in Khasadrapchu. We met Tshering through informal contacts.

When Tshering was only 4 years old, he got involved in a car accident. As a consequence, sadly, his leg had to be amputated up until his hip. He has a prosthetic leg to help him to walk and go to school, but it is heavy and very uncomfortable, since he is even not able to bend his knee in this prosthetic leg. Tshering is very unhappy with his situation, because his prosthetic leg does not allow him to walk properly. It is a challenge to go to school and walk around the roads of Bhutan. Even going to the toilet is difficult.

End of September 2017 we presented Tshering’s case to the Protheses Foundation in Chiang Mai, Thailand, founded by H.R.H. The Princess Mother Srinagarindra of Thailand. The Prostheses Foundation provide state-of-the-art artificial legs to amputees independent of nationality, race, or religion. We are happy to announce that his case was approved. Tshering will be travelling to Thailand beginning of June 2018 to receive a new light weight prosthetic, which will also allow him to bend his knee again. A new light weight prosthetic leg will be significantly more comfortable for Tshering and will allow him to lead a normal daily life, and be a happy kid again.

The Himalaya Club has organized this project, and will finance the transportation, care and all other means needed, to give Tshering a new and better life.

The Belgian Fund for Child Cancer provides practical support to hospitals, such as toys for sick kids. Finally, when every treatment has failed, the organization also aims to fulfill the last wish of a sick child. In 2018, The Himalaya Club offered a donation to the Belgian Fund for Child Cancer for the second year in a row. Our donation will help children like Ruth with the treatment of her cancer, and will improve the quality of her life and that of her parents through practical means such as a tablet to follow class while in hospital, or a bicycle trailer for the family to take a day off together.

Read all about the Belgian Fund for Child Cancer on their website: www.BKKS.be

DAKANT, short for “Daklozenhulp Antwerpen vzw”, is a Belgian non-profit organization that offers help to less fortunate and homeless people from Antwerp and surroundings. People who live at the poverty line or below, for any reason, and have as a consequence insufficient resources to provide themselves with food.

Every week on Sunday DAKANT offers a quality lunch package consisting of a base of vegetables, fruit, bread and a topping of meat and/or cheese, miscellaneous items depending on the availability, combined with fresh coffee, chocolate milk and soup. The average market value of such a meal package is approximately € 40. This means an average monthly savings for every person of 160€. DAKANT distributes between 250 and 400 packages per week, during the winter season.

Hunger and / or social isolation can have a devastating effect on people who are already struggling. DAKANT offers to help these people with basic means, to motivate them to move towards the next step. Everyone, regardless of age, background and belief, is welcome at the food distribution of DAKANT. An identity card or the exact socio-economic situation, are not asked for. The only group favored during the distribution is the group of disabled people.

The Himalaya Club provided a fully-equipped kitchen to DAKANT, in which the different items for the weekly food distribution can be easily prepared.

Namaste Children Nepal is a non-governmental orphanage, founded by Tej. B. Khadka in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 2005, for the welfare of homeless and parentless children in Nepal. The major objective of this non-governmental organisation is to provide proper shelter, quality education and health care to the children. It aims at giving privilege to those children who were left behind by their parents. This private organization ensures that no child is deprived of the rights and the life s/he should be granted with.

Nepal is a small but very beautiful country in south Asia, on top of the Himalaya mountains, with rich natural scenery and cultural variety. However, the country is constantly a victim of natural disasters and the life of the Nepalese inhabitants suffers from this constant threat. In the recent past, a political and civil war killed hundreds of people, and children ended up as orphans. The lack of political stability and protective laws has made thousands of children suffer from insufficient safe accommodation, nutritious food and quality education.

Namaste Children Nepal has been working in the sector of child welfare since its establishment. The organization has its own residence in Kathmandu where the children stay. They take full responsibility of the children and provide the necessary care. Namaste Children Nepal is providing proper health care and education to the children. Twenty-six children are staying at the home at present. There is regular coordination with the Children Welfare Committee, a governmental institution for the welfare of children. These children are either orphans, left behind by their parents, from a poor family, victims of natural disasters, crime or abuse. They are proposed to Namaste Children Nepal by social organizations, local governments, police or social welfare institutions. The organization runs on donations from individuals and public or private organizations. Any sort of donation is always welcome. The organization aims to expand its activities and projects, by establishing primary schools, libraries, study centers, health care units and birth centers.

The Himalaya Club has decided to provide a donation to Namaste Children Nepal to assist the organization in its mission of providing a good future to the children in Nepal.

In 2017, The Himalaya Club has offered a donation to the Belgian Fund for Child Cancer. Our donation will be used to help kids like Line, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor when she was 15 months old. Today Line is 22 months old and almost cured, but only after her parents payed 5.200 euro for the cure. The Belgian Fund for Child Cancer also helps sick children to follow courses remotely, so that they won’t fall behind on their education while staying in the hospital.

Read all about it on their website: www.bkks.be