The project leaders and senior representatives from all of the five settlement camps in Chandragiri briefed the Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo on plans for drainage and road construction.
Chandragiri Project
Protecting long-term health.
In 2008, The Sakyong Foundation granted $80,000 towards building roads in the Chandragiri district, the heart of the Tibetan community in Orissa, India. Modern roads and drainage will greatly reduce malaria risk during the monsoon season.
Chandragiri – A Tibetan Settlement in Orissa, India
600 Tibetan refugee families arrived in Orissa in the early 1960’s and settled in five camps at and near Chandragiri. The camps are collectively known as Phuntsokling, “land of happiness and plenty”. Families built cottages and a monastery resembling what they had left in Tibet. Currently there are 4500 people in the five camps. The Chandragiri settlement is under the spiritual guidance of His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche and representatives of the Dalai Lama have been appointed to manage the affairs of the settlement.
Refugees transformed the barren land of Chandragiri into cultivable fields; maize and corn being the main crops. Refugees also engage in carpet weaving, textile weaving, woodcarving, painting and metal work. The Tibetan cooperative society of Chandragiri runs a handicraft center, daily center, poultry center, horticulture center, health center mechanical workshop, elderly persons home, schools and a monastery.
Khandro Tseyang unveiling a plaque in Phuntsokling, the Tibetan settlement where the road and drain construction project aims to eradicate malaria.
Malaria Eradication Project Fund
The Orissa region of India sometimes known as the “Malaria Capital of India” has the largest number of malaria patients and malaria-related deaths India.
During the rainy season, water pools alongside unpaved dirt roads that connect the five camps of the Chandragiri settlement. The stagnant water attracts mosquitos carrying a blood parasite; thus the people in the camps who travel these roads by foot on a daily basis live with the constant threat of contracting malaria. A team of engineers and local officials has worked out a plan to drain the malaria-breeding swamps by building roads with a drainage system that will eliminate conditions for the rainwater to pool. During a visit to Chandragiri region in 2006 by western students and patrons, funds for the first of the five roads and drainage projects were successfully raised. The Sakyong Foundation granted these funds in 2008 and building was completed in 2010.
