By: Ajai Srivastava
Shimla: Jamyang (33), a Dharamshala based Tibetan refugee monk and Director of Tong-Len Charitable Trust, has said that the excellent results of his pilot project at the slums of Charan Khudd in Dharamshala have encouraged him to start a state level project for the total upliftment of nearly 10,000 slum dwellers in Himachal Pradesh. He was addressing a press conference here, yesterday, organised by the Society for Disability and Rehabilitation Studies (SDRS), HP Chapter to support the cause.
He said that the results of this pilot project have shown him the path to serve more people of dirty slums of Himachal Pradesh. According to him, his Trust conducted a survey of all the slum areas of the state and found that nearly 10,000 people live in slums in very bad conditions. Most of them are migrants from Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Orissa, Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh. Now the Trust would expand its activities in the other slum areas of the state.
In the next step, the slums of Palampur would be served by providing the dwellers with health and education facilities. He disclosed that in the last financial year, the Trust spent Rs 17 lakh on the slum dwellers of Charan Khudd. Many kids with severe ailments were sent to (Post Graduate Institute) PGI Chandigarh for their treatment and surgery and one young boy Sandeep was admitted and treated successfully in the famous Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai. All these expenses were born by the Trust which collects donations for its social activities and has received no support from the state or central government yet.
On this occasion the entire team of SDRS, HP Chapter including its Chairman Ajai Srivastava, General Secretary Dalel Thakur, Vice Chairpersons Yashwant Rai and Bharti Kuthiala were present. They said that their organisation would extend its full cooperation to Monk Jamyang in his social activities for the empowerment of slum dwellers in other parts of Himachal Pradesh.
For the record, Jamyang had fled from Tibet in 1993 at the age of 19, to save his After studying Buddhist philosophy, he realised that the real service of Buddha is the service of humanity and he decided to devote his life for the cause. Now he has a good team of dedicated volunteers in Dharamshala. They include Shankar, Beeru, Suman and an Australian girl, Elsie.
