Tibetan Homes Schools
Tibetan Homes Foundation (THF) is a registered charitable institute dedicated to working for the care of orphan, semi orphan and destitute Tibetan refugee children. More than five decades have gone by since its small beginning in November 1962 at Mussoorie by His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso the XIVth Dalai Lama.
The foundation of this organization is a testimony of the killings and mass destruction of a nation called Tibet in 1950s. It is also referred to as one of the horrifying human tragedies of the last century in this part of the world. The Chinese initially entered Tibet in the disguise of friendly neighbors willing to assist in bringing prosperity and development to the nation and then like a wicked wolf created situations to force Tibetans to sign a seventeen point agreement to which the Tibetans had to bow as no other countries came to their rescue.
For eight years, the Chinese cleverly had their soldiers advance into the country with the aim of annexing Tibet as part of China. During the same period the Tibetan people and their government left no stone unturned to buy peace with the Chinese but failed due to the Chinese high handedness. This was the most agonizing and helpless situation ever faced by Tibet in her history. In March 1959, a major uprising took place and the Tibetan people, monks, nuns and children took to the street revolting against the Chinese. The Chinese soldiers then plundered, brutally murdered and robbed the defenseless Tibetan people . Thousands of Tibetans were killed and so were hundreds of monasteries and temples looted.
The Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959 led His Holiness the Dalai Lama (temporal and spiritual leader) to flee his homeland and take refuge in India. Hundreds and thousands of Tibetan families with their children also followed the leader. The path of escape into India was not easy for the Tibetan families with their belongings and children, trekking over the snow mountain for weeks and months facing snow blizzard, starvation and the fear of the Chinese soldiers. The refugees arrived in India exhausted and sick.
At the Indian border the Indian Government welcomed the Tibetan leader and his followers providing a huge relief for the Tibetan people who then spread around the border areas and worked at all kinds of jobs for their living. In the early years, most of the Tibetan families worked with the PWD (Public Works Department) as manual labourers assisting in the construction of roads. Then the Prime Minister of India,Late Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru provided His Holiness a permanent residential place to stay in Mussoorie.
The house where His Holiness lived initially in early sixties still stands at Happy valley and is known as the Birla House. A huge number of Tibetan families followed the leader to Mussoorie and the condition of the Tibetan refugees at that particular time was pathetic. The harsh journey from Tibet led to the death of many Tibetan families, which in turn left a huge number of orphaned children. The first concerns of His Holiness were to provide basic needs such as food, clothe and shelter for the hundreds of orphan,semi-orphans and destitute Tibetan children and than think of their future. His Holiness then stressed the need to set up homes for these children where- by they would be provided with a normal upbringing based on the Pestalozzi village at Trogen in Switzerland and thus Tibetan Homes Foundation was born in November 1962 with three homes and seventy-five children. The three homes were purchased with donations made by His Holiness.
Branches of THF:
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Tibetan Homes Foundation