Reportage – 2006

Jetsun Pema retires as the President of TCV schools

MCLEOD GANJ, India, 12 August 2006 — Jetsun Pema poses with children of Tibetan Children's Village school after the handing-over ceremony of the Presidency of the TCV schools to Tsewang Yeshi. She has served the post for the last 43 years. Yeshi was elected to the post by the Board of Directors of the TCV schools. [ click here for print size   2.9M ]

MCLEOD GANJ, India, 12 August 2006 — Jetsun Pema, the younger sister of the Dalai Lama and the head of the Tibetan Children's Village (TCV) Schools, retired on Saturday as the President. She handed over the post to Tsewang Yeshi.

She took joy in democratically electing the new President. "I am happy that the new President Tsewang Yeshi came through elections by the administrative heads of the TCV," she said.

Tsewang Yeshi was previously the Executive Director, which post has now been abolished. He joined the TCV in 1974.

Though she may have officially stepped down, Jetsun Pema vowed to contribute in whatever way she could for the education of Tibetan children. "My retirement doesn't mean I will just sit back and say mantras."

She will in particular oversee the construction of a Tibetan college which is currently being build in Bangalore, at the cost of 10 million US dollars.

"A Tibetan college has long been needed to educate Tibetans in a Tibetan environment so that they learn and retain their Tibetan-ness."

Jetsun Pema had taken over administration of the TCV schools in June 1964 at the behest of the Dalai Lama. She has since been a motherly figure for thousands of destitute and orphaned Tibetan children.

TCV overlooks the well-being of more than 15,000 children and youths, and is staffed by over 1200 members.

Apart from schools, TCV runs vocational training centres, youth hostels, old people's homes and day care centres.

Jetsun Pema has also served in various capacities in the exile Tibetan society as a youth and women's leader, and most prominently the minister of the Department of Education of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

In 1995, the exile Tibetan Parliament awarded her the title, "Mother of Tibet," in recognition of her dedication and service to Tibetan children.

She wrote her autobiography: Tibet: My Story, which was published in 1996, and has played a role as the Great Mother in Jean-Jacques Annaud's Brad Pitt starer Seven Years in Tibet, an account of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, who set out in 1939 to climb the Nanga Parbat in the Indian Himalayas.

Jetsun Pema was born in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, on 7 July 1940. She came to India in 1950 and studied first at St. Joseph's Convent in Kalimpong and later at Loretto Convent in Darjeeling from where she completed her Senior Cambridge in 1960. She later studied in Switzerland and pursued further studies in England.

The hardest times of her responsibility at the school were in the early days when there were very little food she could provide to the children, and it was difficult to accommodate the growing number of destitute Tibetan children.

"My greatest times are when our students fare well in the national level exams."