Tibetan SOS Children’s Village Ladakh was first established in 1975 with a set of only 15 students, which grew overtime to a staggering number of 1017 students today. A total number of 3500 have completed their class X till date and 8768 have been admitted to school.
Ladakh holds a prominent place in the map of Tibetan refugees dwells in the Northern border of India. Located 7 km to the south-east of Leh city is Tibetan Children’s Village at a place called Choglamsar. TCV was established on the ‘noble thought’ suggested by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who was deeply concerned about the educational opportunities for the Tibetan children in exile.
During the mass exodus, just over four thousand refugees arrived in Ladakh by 1962. Initially most of them settled in the remote region of Jangthang areas. However, as life became more difficult with passage of time, many sought refugees in settlement camps in the Leh region and worked on the road construction sites. Unlike Tibetan refugees elsewhere, those in Ladakh did not receive much help from outside, so the condition of the refugees here remained poor.
As report of their deteriorating conditions reached His Holiness, he felt that help must be sent immediately, especially for the children and the old people. The responsibility of caring for the children and the disabled was given to Mrs. Jetsun Pema La, Director, Tibetan Children’s Village Dharamsala with the initial donation of Rs.10000 from His Holiness.
In June 1975, Mrs. Jetsun Pema La along with a team from Dharamsala toured the refugee camps to assess the situation and then came up with a plan for a TCV in Ladakh. As the need was both urgent and immediate, she then asked Ven. Lobsang Tenzin (first director of the village) and Mr. Pema Tsering to remain behind and start construction work at Choglamsar, which was then a barren piece of land. Ladakh district authorities granted the land for free.
The first set of 15 children was brought to the school on 23 October 1975 even before the completion of the first building. These children came from Serchu, a remote Tibetan refugee settlement in Jangthang. On 5th November of the same year another sixty children and four old people were brought to the village.
In October 1975, Mrs. Jetsun Pema while in Austria appealed to Dr. Herman Gmeiner, founder of the SOS Village for help as she was determined to establish a Tibetan Children’s Village in Ladakh according to the plan she had set for the poor and the needy. With Dr. Gmeiner’s assurance of help, building of the SOS home and establishment of our village took its initial step.
The first home was completed in early September 1976. It was inaugurated and blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama on 12th September 1976. Ever since, till date, the Tibetan Children’s Village here celebrated 12th September as its official ‘Founding Anniversary’ or ‘Founder’s Day’.
TODAY
Almost five decades passed since its inception. The village today has the facilities of twenty-eight homes and 6 hostels, three each for senior boys and girls respectively. Each home accommodates a maximum of 20 children and a trained home mother to look after the children.
The children of our village are mainly orphans, semi-orphans, destitute or children from remote Jangthang regions. Education for these innocent young minds lies entirely on our village school. Seven of our homes are exclusively for needy local Ladakhi children.
Every home has its own solar heating system for domestic purposes. Extreme climatic condition compels the village to facilitate such facilities as indispensable and unavoidable. Beautifully well-grown trees, flowers and patch of land specially used for kitchen garden, adorned homes and hostels. Our village today is indeed one of the greenest spot in the whole of Ladakh region. It has been rightly called “Oasis” in the deep desert. Our greeneries give us a ‘sense of pride’ as we are moving a step towards becoming a global citizen who is trying their best to take global responsibility. The Director is the overall head of the village and coordinates all the village work acting as a father figure.
SCHOOL
When Mrs. Jetsun Pema La paid her second visit to Ladakh in December 1975, she visited all the refugee camps. The miserable sight that met her eyes, especially those of the children made her initiated the individual sponsorship for the camp children. After the completion of the primary day schools, students joined Middle School for Tibetans run by CTSA (Central Tibetan Schools Administration) along with our SOS home children. Middle School could not accommodate the gradual increase in the number of children, the Middle School was merged into SOS home and all the Tibetan Children in Ladakh came under the umbrella of TCV there after and till date.
SOS TCV School.
Classes upgraded every year and it became imperative for the school authority to construct bigger building for the senior students and senior section came into being in the year 1983. Previous school building was used by junior section. Brand new building was built for the infant section just behind the senior section.
The senior section includes classes VI to X. The complex consists of 20 classrooms, one spacious beautifully designed library, three-science laboratories (well equipped) one resource room, two stationeries, one staff room, one administrative block and one big enough computer room. It has around 620 students at present.
The junior section has classes from I to V. Apart from computer room and science lab rest of the infrastructure is similar to senior section. They currently accommodate 275 children.
The Infant Section or Main Montessori has from classes stage I to III. They have 5 classrooms, Headmaster’s Office and a staff room.
The Tibetan SOS Children’s Village School Ladakh took a maiden step to be a part of CBSE schools with effect from May 01, 1986. It was in 1988 our students appeared in national examination (AISSE) conducted by this board for the first time in the village academic history. Since then our school is affiliated to CBSE and till now 36 batches of 3500 class X students pass out from our village school.
The Principal is the overall academic head of the school. He coordinates, supervises and takes full academic responsibility of all the branch schools under TCV Ladakh.
The main school consisting of the Main Montessori, Junior Section and Senior Section is situated in the village compound. Besides 560 boarding children, another 457 children attend the school as day students. The village bus leaves early in the morning to pick-up day students that live beyond walking distance, drop them back home in the evening after the class hour.
The Tibetan Children’s Village Schools in Ladakh at present took entire responsibility of 1017 children’s educational needs, physical development and emotional well-being. Every single child is given due care to become a better human being. They are indeed the “Pride” of our school.
OUT REACH PROGRAMME
221 Old and infirm people having no one to look after them are under our care. In addition to that, another 50 old people are at the Old Peoples home Choglamsar. These old peoples are receiving three times meal, clothing & shelter.
STAFF MEMBERS
Presently, the Village has 217 staff members dedicating their service with full determination, keeping in mind the mission of TCV like giving parental care, love to children, providing the best of both modern and Tibetan education and enabling 1017 children to become constructive global citizen .
Village Office
TCV Ladakh