Organized for the second time by Live to Love Foundation, a non-profit humanitarian organization, in association with the Til Ganga Institute of Ophthalmology, the eye camp at the Druk Pema Karpo Clinic was graced by His Holiness, the 12th Gyalwang Drukpa.
His Holiness is an active environmentalist, educator and the spiritual head of the thousand-year-old Drukpa Order, one of the main Lamaist Buddhist schools of the Himalayas. His core philosophy is to convert compassion into action and create concrete solutions for today’s problems.
The Druk White Lotus School at Shey in Ladakh, India, is one of his major projects which has earned worldwide recognition for its green architecture. The school was also featured in the blockbuster film “3 Idiots” after which Aamir Khan accepted the conferment as the first ambassador of Live to Love Foundation.
“The Druk White Lotus School founded by His Holiness is the mother school. We’ve also constructed several other satellite schools all over the Himalayan regions which provide its students with modern education while preserving their local culture,” said Carrie Lee, one of the international coordinators for Live to Love.
In September 2010, the United Nations honored His Holiness with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Award for his various humanitarian works through Live to Love, which he founded in 2007.
The Week caught up with His Holiness for an interview. Here are the excerpts:
How did Your Holiness get involved in the environmental and educational projects?
Even when I was growing up in Darjeeling, the concept of environmental awareness was always with me. It’s really important that people learn to live harmoniously with the environment. I’ve been involved in environmental and educational activities for a long time. However, it was recognized only after we went international with the foundation of Live to Love.
Does being a religious leader limit your humanitarian projects?
Usually, I hope I’m not just considered a religious leader. Religion shouldn’t be limited to just theories. I want to be more practical than theoretical; so I support actions rather than mere thinking and praying. Of course, God has been kind and heard our prayers many times, but the need now is also to act to be useful to humanity ourselves.
When I first came here around 10 years ago, we started building this community in the mountain. We wanted to be integrated in the community and not isolated from it. The clinic and the auditorium were built for completely non-religious purposes with state-of-the-art technology so people could come together and share their ideas for humanitarian projects.
What kind of projects will you be concentrating on for Nepal?
The current group of nuns we have here at the mountains makes sure that they reach out to the neighboring communities and be of help in any way possible.
Besides, we noticed that the people here had a lot of medical needs but they were unable to acquire most of it in time due to inaccessibility. The Druk Pema Karpo Clinic is set up to provide them with health facilities and general treatment with traditional and modern medicines. There have been two eye camps so far and we’re also planning to bring in more activities, such as burn camps and dental camps, in the future.
Have you thought of building satellite schools such as the one in Ladakh in Nepal as well?
We definitely have, but we’ve also found that things are a lot complicated here during our feasibility tests. When we build satellite schools, it’s not like a huge campus but taking education to the local level with the community taking its ownership.
Moreover, our philosophy is not to enforce any kind of foreign education but work with the local education system.
So it depends a lot on the feasibility tests and the local government. From my experience, I’d say it’ll take some eight years to set up satellite schools here in Nepal.
What kind of education do the schools look forward to provide?
Besides teaching local languages, English, computer, science and math according to modern education system of the community, our education also has to focus on more vocational and social aspects.
Most importantly, it’s crucial to teach people how to be compassionate. Many people are educated but they need to learn how to live with love and how to live harmoniously with themselves and the environment.
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