Kham Kampo Association

A couple of weeks ago at the Bridge Fund office in Chengdu I met a young man from Bathang, and engaged him slack conversation for a couple of minutes before realizing that he had been preceded by his reputation.


Lobsang Gonbo was a student in the well-known Xining English Training Program, where he learned to write grant proposals in English. Xining is the provincial capital of Qinghai (roughly Amdo for the old-schoolers). A proposal to replicate the program in The Tibetan School in Sichuan had the following to say:

The concept of the ETP originated with Kevin Stuart and Robert Lindstrom, both American foreign teachers of English at Qinghai Education College in Xining City. They wrote a proposal in 1991 requesting support for an English language-teaching program targeting Tibetan youth. The proposal eventually elicited interest, and consequently the program has been supported over the years by a number of different organizations such as the Trace Foundation (New York City), The Bridge Fund (San Francisco), Good Works (Idaho), Misereor (Germany), and the Ford Foundation (Beijing/New York City).

The Xining ETP also inspired the Bridge Fund to create the classes for which Tenzin and I teach. In Xining, students earn the equivalent of a vocational associates degree (dazhuan), whereas our students are younger and are studying for a high-school diploma (gaozhong biye zheng) or a vocational degree (zhongzhuan). The National Committee on U.S. China Relations highlighted the Xining ETP in a recent newsletter:

ETP trains Tibetan students to teach English in their own communities and to create community development projects. One student completed thirteen projects, benefiting more than 20,000 people, in medicine, solar energy, schools, libraries, and distribution of second hand clothes; several other students set up local, grassroots NGOs; and another is involved in language preservation.

I'm not sure, but the student mentioned in the above may have been Gonbo. It was Satina and Kat Cooley who first told me about Gonbo and Kham Kampo Association, the NGO he started. Kat is a close friend from Chengdu working for the international NGO Ecologia, and she and Satina had returned from KKA's solar cooker factory highly impressed. The former Education Director of Kham Aid John Geschek (sp?), a friend through Tenzin, called Gonbo an hardcore example of grassroots capacity building.


So needless to say I was stoked to meet Gonbo randomly in the Bridge Fund office that Friday afternoon. Gonbo gave me his card and the next weekend I taxied up the mountain to the KKA office in Kangding.

Gonbo is my age. He graduated in Xining only two years ago. He has another couple of young Tibetan men from the Xining ETP working with him, and has also hired a girl of twenty from the first Bridge Fund class out of Kangding Middle School (Tenzin is teaching the second class, preparing to take their examinations next weekend. My students are the third class.) The KKA does a lot of good work, like installing running water systems in towns, distributing small solar panels, and rebuilding primary schools like this one in Bathang County:


Although foreign teachers taught them to start an NGO, these smaller non-profits have no foreigners working for them (and rightly so). Except for an American in Beijing, us English teachers are the only foreigners in the Bridge Fund in China, and technically we're only contractors. I went to the KKA office to see if I could help them out with any English polishing. I met a woman from the aforementioned National Committee on US China Relations who was already volunteering for the week on that task. I'd finally gotten the opportunity to help and learn more about a local grassroots non-profit (what I'd like to get into when I get back home), but Gonbo said there was little I could do at the moment. Gonbo then surprised me by suggesting that I begin teaching my students about writing proposals.

My kids's English isn't nearly at that level, but last week I introduced them to the concept anyway. Gonbo sent me a copy of a proposal for a running water system to go through with them next week, and someone from the KKA is coming to talk to the class later on. Gonbo and the rest of the KKA staff have a lot of interest in Tibetan students in English language programs, because they are a product of those classes themselves.

This week Gonbo finally did send me some abstracts to proof. They're to be posted on the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library, a very cool and thorough resource in five languages, useful for researchers (ahem, Michael) and interested amateurs alike.