A pair of September fundraisers just reminded us how fortunate we are here in La Plata County. Not just for the high standards of our health, economy and education, but also for our unique opportunities to help others struggling with the basics we so easily take for granted.
Each event was for a nonprofit organization making a big difference in a remote part of Asia. Both foundations are based here in Durango. What’s more, both encourage not just financial support from local citizens, but provide opportunities for locals to join in their work.
The Shanta Foundation, founded by Durango residents Tricia and Mike Karpfen, does its work in small villages in Myanmar, improving quality of life by partnering with villagers to build new schools, provide nutritious meals for students, build reliable, clean water sources and offer affordable health care. Shanta is also dedicated to economic development projects, including helping residents found small community banks to spur local business ventures through micro-loans.
All of which, no doubt, sounds familiar to Karma and Jyamu Bhotia, who are working on many of the same projects farther north in their native Himalayan region of Nepal. Starting in their home village of Chyamtang, where they spurred the construction of a new school that now also boasts a lunch program, the couple is spreading the reach and benefits of the Bhotia Foundation to other villages in the region, providing health care and health education, especially to women, and starting small, but connected, village markets in an area where geography and poverty limit opportunities for so many.
The foundations share many aims and goals – and a reliance on donations. But they differ somewhat in other fundraising strategies. Shanta recently announced that it has received five years of funding from the Vibrant Village Foundation, a benefit that will allow them to expand their efforts.
The Bhotias, owners of the Himalayan Kitchen and the Dreams of Tibet store next door, direct a large share of their profits to their foundation. The couple just opened a second Dreams outlet on Main Avenue, across from the Strater Hotel. Half of the profits from this location will support the day care, school lunch and family planning in Chyamtung.
Remaining as a dedicated, effective source for change in turbulent Asia is not easy. The Shanta Foundation is working as always, despite the highly publicized conflict between Myanmar’s government and its Muslim Rohingya population, a horrific crisis labeled an ethnic cleansing by the press worldwide – including Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times (Herald, Sept. 14), who will speak in Durango tonight.
The Bhotia Foundation’s efforts were complicated in April, 2015, by Nepal’s devastating earthquake. Efforts to bring supplies into the country’s remote areas, never easy to begin with, were greatly complicated by landslides, broken bridges over river gorges, and the need for emergency housing in villages throughout Nepal.
Despite the challenges, both foundations are in it for the long run, and hope the strong local support continues.
It certainly should. Because, as evidenced in so many photos and videos shown to attendees at both events, there is no doubting the effectiveness of these efforts, or the gratitude of the people on the receiving end.
And as the Karpfens have discovered, and the Bhotias learned years ago, the villagers of La Plata stand to learn and benefit equally in the exchange.
