$680 paid for the purchase of mattresses, blankets, rice-filled pillows, and bedcovers at a community shelter for the elderly at Parka in the Qinghai Province through the Jinpa Project, a small group helping people in Tibet. This gift is intended to improve the lives of these revered elderly members of the community.

The Jinpa Project was founded by a group of monks living in Nepal who wanted to help the poverty-stricken people living in West Nangchen, a county in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

The shelter for the elderly is sorely needed according to Dr. E.A. Carswell of The Jinpa Project: "There are around 20 very elderly people at Lachen monastery at present. Nineteen of the 20 are old ladies. This elderly group spends all day, every day praying and reciting mantras for better reincarnations and for better lives for all living beings. Those that are fit enough, circumambulate around the mani stones and stupas endlessly. Those too infirm to do this, sit in a corner of the freezing main room of the monastery, spinning their prayer wheels and chanting mantras. They all suffer from arthritis and are in constant pain. There is no proper accommodation for these old people. At present they make do with odd corners in the monastery for shelter and meager handouts of food from the monks to see out their lives. Recently a visiting Westerner heard rustling coming from a corner of a derelict room and thought it was rats. Sadly it was an old lady who had been sleeping in the corner under some remains of cardboard boxes."

Jinpa's Aims

To relieve poverty
To preserve Tibetan Culture
To protect the environment

JinpaJinpa is a small charity working in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (Qinghai Province, China) on the Tibetan High Plateau.

Jinpa was founded by local people who experienced the poverty themselves while growing up and now want to try to help relieve some of the suffering here. The area is so remote and the land so poor, that poverty and suffering are actually increasing. Jinpa's first projects were a school with a cultural focus and a Tibetan Medicine Clinic.

The following years have seen Jinpa grow. Today the original Tibetan organisation is supported by the Scottish registered Jinpa Trust, which endeavours to raise funding for the projects.

Jinpa is a non-political organisation.

Jinpa Projects

Through its grass-roots organsiation in Yushu, Jinpa is able to identify, plan and execute projects in close partnership with the local community.

Cutting out the middleman ensures that all the money given to Jinpa gets to the projects that so desparately need it with none being lost to bribes, facilitation payments and intermediate staff.

More importantly, the close relationship that Jinpa's local staff are able to build with the recepient community mean that the projects get designed and implemented just to meet the local people's needs - not what anyone else thinks they should need.

Make an online donation

Learn more at: www.jinpa.org