Donche Tibetan School–Qinghai Province, People’s Republic of China
Donche is a small private school in the Amdo region, an area that faces rapidly increasing demand for bilingual education for students from Tibetan families. The surrounding communities have raised the money to fund the construction and administration of the school, which was built on twenty-five acres of land donated by the Donche village community.
Although the school has thrived, it still lacks a library and computer lab. The Ping Matching Grant will provide the necessary funding to establish both. The library will house books in Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese languages and a computer lab with Internet connections. Although the majority of students at Donche School are Tibetans, the school admits students from other ethnic groups; the availability of books in a variety of languages will allow the library will serve both the students and their families.
CIEE students have already benefited from a relationship between CIEE and the chair of the school’s board of directors, Dr. Tsering Thar, who has given lectures and held activities for CIEE on the CUN campus, where our program is hosted. During and after the library project, CIEE students will have a chance to visit the school and help out in various ways, such as by teaching Donche students new skills, like how to do online research.