The Bon are a minority Tibetan ethnic group that fled to India when the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959. In 1968, the Bon established a community in Dolanji, India on donated land. Today, 75 Tibetan Bon families (including 400 children) are settled there. The community has an orphanage, children’s hostel, school (to the 10th class), health center, and community farm. Projects that CHI has worked on with Bon community leaders include fundraising for water tanks, a storage building, health facility equipment, a drinking water well, and public toilets. CHI has also provided funds to purchase a milk cow and improve water and living conditions.
During visits to Dolanji between 2002 and 2007, a CHI representative has provided training to local people in writing grant requests, reports, and budgets for western donors to improve the water, sanitary, health, education, and living conditions of the community. Now, the community leaders can prepare these documents independently and have become more successful in communicating their needs, priorities, and projects to interested donors with a positive impact on fundraising. A CHI representative is also working with the U.S.-based Bon Foundation to help them improve their accounting practices, financial management, donor tracking, and legal formalization.
CHI is also working with Bon leaders to make secondary education possible for the community’s children through scholarships. CHI has funded scholarships that have allowed Bon youth to obtain secondary education. CHI is also helping Bon community leaders launch a new essential oils project to generate income for the community. Essential oils, which are valuable for their healing properties, have been used at the clinic to treat disease. The Bon leaders have recently been able to produce their own essential oil. They hope to eventually produce enough essential oils to stock the clinic and sell for profit. CHI has raised funds for containers and supplies to keep and maintain donated oils.