Samdhog Rinpoche launches Manjushri’s playbooks and children’s books in the Tibetan language
DHARAMSALA, Sept 23: Former Kalon Tripa(Prime Minister) Samdhong Rinpoche launched Manjushri Educational Services(MES) 13 Playbooks and children’s books in the Tibetan language here on Thursday.
Samdhong Rinpoche who attended the event as the Chief Guest commended the small team of MES for their accomplishments in the past few years which he described as a historic feat.
He further expressed his firm belief in MES to continue their good work and offered his prayers and best wishes.
MES Director Buddha Kyap maintained that the organisation was started by a small group of four like-minded people committed to improving the quality of Early Literacy and Early Childhood Care & Education in the exiled Tibetan community by filling the void of the lack of Children’s books and playbooks available in Tibetan.
MES, a non-profit NGO promoting Early Literacy and Early Childhood Care & Education since its establishment in 2016, has published 63 children’s books and distributed over 50,000 across Tibetan schools and communities in India, Nepal and Bhutan.
Additionally, MES in collaboration with Pratham Books, a leading publisher of children’s books in India has translated around 53 Children’s books into Tibetan which is available online at storyweaver.org.in.
Kyap said that through the MES Tibetan Baby Box project, – which so far covered Ladakh, Jang thang, Dharamsala, Mundgod, Delhi, Manali, Dehradun and Nepal- the organisation has trained 818 Tibetan families in early childhood care and education for parents and offered them the Tibetan Baby Box containing toys, playbooks, STEM storybooks and children’s books.
Funded by The Tibet Fund, MES has so far translated over 100 children’s books into Tibetan and distributed around 63,000 books. Of the lot, MES has distributed 50 per cent of the books for free and sold 46 per cent at a 50% discount with only 4 per cent remaining in stock.
Kyap also informed that the MES library for Children which was opened last year has 224 memberships, averaging 317 visitors a month from Jan – Aug 2022 and 350 books borrowed.
MES has also partnered with the Education Department of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) and trained 1418 Tibetan parents in early childhood care and education, distributed bilingual guide books for parenting in Tibetan and English and trained 29 teacher-parent committees.
Aimed at improving the quality of Early Literacy and Early Childhood Care & Education in the exiled Tibetan community, MES pipeline projects for 2022-2025 include publishing 50 children’s books in Tibetan, covering 400 Tibetan families through the Tibetan Baby Box project in Tibetan settlements in India’s Northeast, central and south and publishing playbooks and STEM storybooks in the Tibetan language.
