School Library Project
Donche Tibetan School—Qinghai Province, People’s Republic of China & CIEE Study Center in Beijing, 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 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 community school thrived, it still lacked a library and computer lab. The Ping Matching Grant provided the necessary funding to establish both. The library houses 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; and the availability of books in a variety of languages allows 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 have visited the school and helped in various ways, such as teaching Donche students computer skills and the process of online research.
Photo courtesy of Donche Tibetan School
Photo courtesy of Donche Tibetan School