Scholarship Announcement!
31 August 2015
We really do get the greatest volunteers who help us create lasting partnerships between people, projects and and places.
This year, we’re thrilled to work with our friends at Omprakash to offer three scholarships to young people who want to help us transform our successful Winter Camps into Recovery Camps for at-risk youth experiencing addiction issues.
Download the PDF file to learn more about the scholarship, how to apply and what you will gain and contribute to Recovery in the Himalayas.
Ladakh is a traditional conservative region in the Western Himalayas. Modernization has brought rapid change; both good and bad. And as Ladakhis evolve their culture, many young people feel stressed, get lost and despair. Substance abuse and addiction is estimated to impact 25% of young lives in the district today.
Since 2006, the HELP Fund and HEALTH Inc have supported Winter Camps offering ice hockey, inquiry-based learning and storytelling as a way to help at-risk children and youth regain self-confidence and build perseverance. All led by dynamic, Ladakhi youth volunteers and always with the active support of villagers and elders.
Why not use this framework to help addicted youth rediscover themselves and their lives? Working with the J&K Police, who have a presence in every village and are tired of seeing youth needlessly lose their lives to alcohol, we’ll bring together 48 youth for a month-long loving and challenging, residential experience. We’ll work together in groups – learning how to
skate and play hockey, gaining computer and videography skills while telling stories important to us and in career and health counselling sessions. We’ll discuss making decisions and setting goals.
And then we’ll take our stories out to Ladakhi villages and share what we’ve learned. All of us – police, recovering youth, volunteers and Ladakhi youth leaders.
We need you to join us.
When we started Winter Camps for kids in 2006, we hadn’t a clue how to make it work. We only knew that to help kids believe in themselves we needed to be there and bravely experiment with new ideas. And for years we’ve had great volunteers helping us make it work.
If you have experience in youth leadership, in addiction and recovery, in coaching ice hockey, in inquiry-based learning, in videography or in counseling; then come join us in change that matters.
Congradulations CHAI
26 August 2015
We want to congratulate the wonderful team at CHAI (the Canadian-Himalayan Association for Innovation) who are now officially a Registered Charity in Canada.
CHAI works with us on our Recovery and Winter Camps and does fabulous work with People With Disabilities in Ladakh.
Great work CHAI and look forward to seeing you at camp this winter.
Johnny’s are just the best
21 August 2015
We through one of our toughest years at Johnny’s Seeds at 4 test gardens in Ladakh.
And the seeds still served us well. We are collecting thousands for next year’s farmer’s gardens (which Tsering Dolkar from Tar will organise for us).
And enjoying fabulous new tastes each night in our all our homes!
Annies!!!!!!
8 August 2015
Thanks to Laura and the Siddhartha School Project, the remaining Annies arrived this week! Graduates from the three Institutions (Health, Police and Disaster/School Safety) will miss our volunteer Evan, but are eager to get out there and do more training.
more flooding
6 August 2015
It’s five years since Ladakh was hit with devastating floods. Today is that anniversary. And again this year we’re really being hit. Crops have been lost, homes, roads, irrigation canals, bridges and animals too. We are so lucky to have not lost people like we did in 2010 though. What a blessing.
And the internet is mostly down, if you don’t here from us or friends of yours over the next few weeks. But our entire team is safe and hard at work.
welcome!
22 July 2015
In Tar village, the Johnny’s Seeds in our Seed Libraries project are just going to town! ALL the women had higher than 90% germination and the kids (home on summer school holidays) can be seen grazing each kitchen garden.
I admit while taking photos, I did a little grazing myself.
climate change challenge
16 July 2015
Proud of our Graduates
10 July 2015
Jullay Friends!
3 July 2015
Thanks to everyone in Canada and USA who helped on our gear drive. We hope you have a wonderful holiday.
And we’ll be celebrating here in India by graduating our first class of First Responders!
Your Peak Preview
25 June 2015
A peak of the 2 hour training video made by us at the HELP Fund and the Department of Health – Leh is now available at YouTube! Warning: they don’t like our widescreen format.
Note that Sonam in this picture did watch the video. Don’t worry – our Mumbai Heroes Dr. Anwar and Dr. Yangchen are always here to save the day.
EFA hits Ladakh!
23 June 2015
The HELP Fund and the Department of Health could not be more proud of the hard work that went into making this a reality. Last week a young woman died during an epileptic seizure – a death preventable if the people near her had been trained. The week before a young boy choked to death.
We will be thrilled when we can finally start reducing needless death and disability in Ladakh!
An Incredible Team!
13 June 2015
This is what makes my job worth all the long hours, isolation, and uphill climbs: the people I get to work with. I could not find a better (and more diverse) team to introduce Emergency First Aid to Ladakh with.
The cake says “Ladakhi Heroes”. Truly.
We need your hand
31 May 2015
This year we have 13 groups asking for our help to transform winter from cold and dangerous to magic.
For us to help, we need your support!
Help us insure fabulous – and fabulously trained- young volunteers can join us for our second Ability Camp after Christmas. Wouldn’t you like to give that smile as a gift this year?
Forty-eight young people are hoping for the chance to get clean and sober while enjoying a three-week residential challenge.
The J&K Police are chipping in a Youth Centre, personnel who will serve as mentors and a warm welcome for our volunteers.
We just need the plastic lining for the great rink we’ve already constructed. Tax receipt for you. A second chance at life for 48 young Ladakhis.us for our second Ability Camp after Christmas. Wouldn’t you like to give that smile as a gift this year?
GEAR!
For the third year in a row we have the chance to get gear from Canada and the US to India. This has been the major bottleneck for our using hockey as the carrot to the most wonderful inquiry-based learning and leadership-building Winter Camps offered in Ladakh.
Please check your cellar, your garage, under your kids’ beds and collect lovingly used gear for us. Visit the Himalayan Projects page to learn more!
There are 4 collection centers in USA and Canada.
$17 provides a camper a month of learning and joy! $25 supports a disabled child and her caregiver 20 days of camp!
Stormy Weather….
27 May 2015
Good thing we’ve got a lot of our Johnny’s Seeds growing in a variety of test trench and tunnel greenhouses this year. More snow in Sham while the heat wave is (literally) killing the rest of India.
The seeds are still doing well! Hopefully the snow will stop when it’s time to plant out!
Himalayan High Johnny’s
21 May 2015
We did not intend to give our Johnny’s Seeds an ultimate test this spring. But it’s been one of THOSE years in terms of weather. Snow, rain, sleet, mudslides, irrigation canals washing away and then the Phukthal disaster.
But the seeds are doing great. Our volunteer farmers are eagerly awaiting those first greens while planting out from their greenhouses. And the farming kids are loving playing with their new thermometres.
And I love visiting the gardens and talking to everyone about what’s next! Thanks, Johnny’s – Highest Johnny’s in the World!
Phuktal Landslide Breaks
11 May 2015
The massive 15 km-long lake of water above Phuktal created by the New Year landslide burst and water washed away bridges, other infrastructure and many agricultural lands.
Shout out for an Annie
1 May 2015
Could you help us get more Resuscitation Annie’s?
All around the world, Red Cross’s cycle out their old Annies. People in the west don’t want them. We do!
On giving local day, would you be willing to approach your Red Cross and see if they any old Annie’s in the cellar?
Then contact us as we have volunteers coming from North America and Europe this summer who could bring the Annie’s over.
Rain Relief in use Again
26 April 2015
The roads and paths and irrigation canals were out again. The villagers, who are just now ploughing and planting, couldn’t believe yet another storm and its consequences.
But all the families who received UV resistant polythene as a part of the Flood Relief in 2014 were truly grateful.
They had used it to start bedding plants for their gardens. And simply pulled it off their make-shift greenhouses and put it on their roofs! The gompa and Community Centres also got covered and no damage to homes or other buildings.
Just the roads, paths and irrigation canals. Hopefully the canals can be rebuilt in time to irrigate the freshly-sown seeds.
Thanks to everyone who donated last year from everyone who received plastic sheeting!
Give Local Day
19 April 2015
How does that relate to helping Winter Camps in the Himalayas?
Last year, one young boy from the Canadian Rockies recognised his shin guards in a picture of a Ladakhi child.
“Wow….” as only an 8 year old can express making a connection with a place half way ’round the world.
What if we motivated our young people to put a barrel out? To go on the radio and talk about what they’re doing? To blog about it?
To share and feel that “wow”?
Since 2006 we’ve been using hockey, technology and inquiry based learning to help Ladakhi kids get the “wow factor”. May 5th is your chance to help too!
Barrel + sign in your school or rec centre. And we’ll be telling you where to send the donations in June.
National Volunteerism Week
13 April 2015
We have been so lucky this year – the best volunteers in the whole world. Tobie and Fred for our Winter Camps; and now Daniel helping us with Emergency First Aid training and video project.
We can’t wait for summer and a team of young people to help us create a Youth Health facebook presence.
And then there’s a Volunteering partner – Omprakash. Know a passionate young person who wants an opportunity to grow? Steer them to Omprakash for us!
Something to Celebrate!
6 April 2015
No! Really? I kept saying. Yes! Really! Thinles kept answering.
For lunch we had a bowl of vegetables that tasted like they’d been harvested yesterday. In truth, they had been in Thinles’ ventilated root cellar all winter. I couldn’t believe my eyes or taste buds.
Most Ladakhis lose over 40% of their harvest to rot over the winter. We just don’t have nutritious vegetables left this time of year.
Thinles’ husband Stanba believed he could build a better root cellar. Now we know he can.
After lunch, Lhamo sheepishly pulled a model she’d made for me from behind her back. Papa’s latest idea? Let’s build a better greenhouse!
Stickers!
4 April 2015
Leh Beautification
31 March 2015
You know it’s spring in Leh when they start working on the “Leh Beautification” project again.
They are laying sewer lines throughout the entire town. And that’s a good thing.
But at what cost?
In front of the Jokhang – Main Temple in Leh Bazaar, two of the last remaining, 19th Century buildings came down. And I fear this week the last two trees standing anywhere in Leh Bazaar will also meet their end.
Beautiful Leh?
Modernization?
Life….
Flood Relief Finished!
24 March 2015
It did indeed take a lot of work. And a lot of help from the Achinalunga Goba, the Hanu Gongma Nive Sarpanch and the Department of Agriculture…
But the last of the plastic has been delivered and distributed to Rain Relief families in the Da-Hanu region.
Thanks to everyone’s kind contributions, especially the HART Trust, 13 households and two community buildings now have UV-resistant polythene. Enough to save a house when it next rains – and to use as greenhouse polythene and grow vegetables in the meantime.
Who cares? Considering each family whose house was totally destroyed only received Rs. 17,700/- (less than $300), these families really cared. It made a huge difference. Thanks!
Sticks!
21 March 2015
They don’t have a rink (yet)…
But they have enough sticks and balls to play street hockey every Saturday at their high school.
On behalf of all the kids at the Domkhar Dho Government High School – Thanks for the sticks, Canada!
First Phuktal Blast
14 March 2015
On Friday the 13th the Army made their first blast at an 800m wide landslide that has created a 10 km-long lake in Zanskar, Ladakh. The water held by this artificial dam could flood dozens of villages if the army can’t release it slowly.
The Alchi power plant is downstream also.
Read more and see images:
Health Decision Makers
10 March 2015
Research in the UK shows that young people get most of their information and sex and health in school – but that’s not where they want to learn it. Research shows that most health educators still dish out complicated facts in a lecture format – that bore young people. And in India’s 2013 SAARC Development Goals report, the section on Policy for Health Education Access is left blank. Blank.
Boston’s Public Health Department recently created a hash tag #bostonflu that had 14,000 followers and 1000 retreats in its first day. A recent study showed that Twitter was two weeks ahead of the CDC in predicting where the next flu outbreak would be.
Almost half the health departments in North America are now using social media. It’s where kids are, where they’re used to asking questions and sharing information and its got huge reach.
Everyone in Ladakh is connected to some form of media; radio, tele, satellite tele and smart phone penetration is rapidly growing. (The majority of young people who do not have a cell phone tower in their village still own a cell phone.) Yet zero effort is going into using the media that young people hang out on for health education. Why?
Maybe that the average age of health policy administrators is more than twice the age of the target youth audience.
Health administrators are not on facebook, Twitter and rarely google health information.
Training in health education doesn’t mention social media use.
What would we do with all that left over education budget? Because social media is *free*.
Why not?
What if information that 1 in every 20 Ladakhi is hep B positive and the virus can live for up to 7 days outside the human body went viral?
What if young Ladakhis learned that for the same cost as 2 packets of crisps they could get vaccinated against hep B?
What if kids discovered that other kids are getting vaccinated and social pressure built?
And best of all, what would we do with all that leftover health education money?
Orchard Park calling Hanu
7 March 2015
Then the kids at Orchard Park School (Ontario) heard about Chuskit sitting in the District Hospital (Ladakh) for almost 5 months while bones healed… And when they heard that making friendship bracelets for EVERYONE was the highlight of each day… They got to it
They collected thousands of the infamous rubber bands and sent them (via Tobie MacDonald in Banff) to us. A big hit at our camps. But they were truly a hit in Hanu, which didn’t get a Winter Camp.But on a snowy, school’s-cancelled day has Chuskit teaching everyone to make bracelets.
And I do mean everyone!
Thanks everyone at Orchard Park and the Sharps in the USA. Great love goes far in this world.
progress, not perfection
1 March 2015
Last year, Ladags Drayangs ran one of the best Winter Camps ever. This year, it seems the universe conspired against a repeat. Villagers weren’t interested. Class 10 students went to Leh to study for exams postponed by the Srinagar floods. There’s this new fashion for winter tuitions where children just sit and copy endless amounts of “homework” out of texts.
And at Durbuk, where parents weren’t organised, where youth weren’t interested in being coaching assistants, where tuition involved nothing but copying homework… We had our first skates stolen ever.
We had agreed to go and spend 4 days there as an assessment to see if it could be transformed into a true HELP Fund Camp. Lots of fun learning, lots of village ownership. After one day it was clear that Drayangs really wants to help the entire region develop…
And the horse ain’t interested in drinking that water.So we left – as our mandate says we should. But we also left without 7 1/2 pairs of skates. First time ever.
I really wanted to use words like “missing” or “not returned” to describe what happened. But what does that say to all the communities in our program who work so hard to make sure every puck, every stick and every learning material is cared for and returned? Exactly.
It’s about leadership. And that includes parents leading, kids leading and us leading. (And it still hurts.)
But one of several good things (besides tough decisions and lessons) – We got to spend 3 more days with our first J&K Police Coach , Konchok Angdus. He was a star – and will be a great leader for the Police League next year.
inventory distribution list
26 February 2015
our 2014-2015 donations went to three programs and helped 200 villagers and a group from the J&K police get on their rinks. (And the Police will start a district-wide youth league next year with our help.
No… with YOUR help. Thanks everyone!
standing united
22 February 2015
What will the village do when their low caste kids are excluded from the only rink in the region? Reach out for help, but solve the problem themselves.
The “Mighty Mediums” told the story in their own video at Winter Camp – Shayok.
what a fun camp(s)
17 February 2015
Just back from 24 days out in 4 villages with 2 fantastic coaches and a lot of happy children. We’ll be posting selected happiness – after we clean all the viruses off the cameras.
To all of you in Canada, the USA and India – thanks from all the kids, their parents, our great volunteer Coaches Fred and Tobie and from everyone here at the Fund.
Dreams really do come true.
where is Number 22?
16 February 2015
just a reminder
29 January 2015
a little zing in your life
23 January 2015
You invite two of the best coaches from Canada to come to your village. Ask Mr. Henk to suggest some ideas. Borrow equipment collected in Banff, Regina and Montreal. And then get the heck out of the school and spend some time on the……. zing (rink).
Again we want to say:
Thank you, everyone in Canada. Everyone at the High Commission. Everyone at NiceRink.
It means so very much!
remote villages score
20 January 2015
Tobie and Fred took a break from Winter Camps to skate on the Hockey Foundation and Sacred Bulls teams in the Friendship Cup. And they scored with the local players who love having mentors. Back to Phyang Thangnak and the kids there (who wanna skate too).
22 January Are You? No words just image
23 Januar A little zing in your life
You invite two of the best coaches from Canada to come to your village. Ask Mr. Henk to suggest some ideas. Borrow equipment collected in Banff, Regina and Montreal. And then get the heck out of the school and spend some time on the……. zing (rink).
inventory!
18 January 2015
Thank you everyone. Collecting, sorting and then shipping the gear takes a lot of time. We never, ever take for granted all the work you do to make our lives so filled with joy.
I wanna skate too!
17 January 2015
Thanks to all who donated gear in 2014 for our Winter Camps in 2015. And thanks to the HART Fund for providing the funding so the kids could get to Gophuks and skate for 9 days this winter!
Watch for more stories of “I wanna skate too.”
the Nicest NiceRink
16 January 2015
Shayok’s ready
10 January 2015
The Coaches are coming
3 January 2015
Its that time of year that we feel so very blessed. Our volunteers are on their way to help with Winter Camps again. Happy, happy day!
