| Season's Greetings from Lha Charitable Trust We wish you a happy holiday season and a safe and prosperous New Year! Lha Charitable Trust has just released our 2012 annual report. It has been a successful year thanks to our many generous supporters, such as yourself! Lha’s primary goal is to provide meaningful, multi-leveled social services in Dharamsala to help ease the transition for the Tibetan refugee community. On a daily basis, Lha serves over 150 people, hosts between 15 to 25 volunteers, and provides approximately 20 various services which include language education, computer courses, vocational training, health and environmental education, a Community Soup Kitchen, clean water, medicine, clothing distribution, and a public Library. Lha’s services are open to Tibetan refugees as well as the local Indian population and people from the Himalayan regions. We also provide cultural exchanges for international groups and free coordination for volunteers from around the globe. Lha works hard to operate with minimum administrative and program costs to produce the maximum output. Your donations help us to improve and increase our services and projects. One of the many projects that donations in 2012 contributed to was the installation of three brand new water filtration systems in three schools serving around 600 hundred people who are now using pure clean water for both their drinking and cooking needs. In addition, donations helped support Lha’s Soup Kitchen to bring healthy food to those in need serving 40-50 financially disadvantaged people daily and 105 needy people since it's inception. Another program of 2012 was the clear vision project which provided free eye exams and free glasses, the eye testing of 105 people of all ages, free of cost, and quality eye glasses to a total of 80 individuals, also free of cost refunded as well as medicines for 37 people for their eyes. We also organized nine cultural exchange groups from international institutions with over 112 students participating in this program. Lha began this year having a social service booth at His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teaching. At the booth we distribute information on our social service, environmental issues and awareness of Tibetan issues. In addition we store, for a small fee, items that can not be taken into the temple such as cell phones and cameras. Lha is proud to announce that it took over management of Contact Magazine starting in May, 2012! Recognized by Lonely Planet and other international travel resources, Contact has been a very popular, free publication for Tibetan issues and community information in Dharamsala for over 14 years. It is one of the longest-running Tibetan publications in the area, and provides local residents, as well as international visitors, Please Read more about Contact Magazine. The donations from volunteers and exchange groups staying in Lha’s accommodations have allowed Lha to become more self-sufficient and sustainable – our Language, Computer Classes and other daily basis social services are now able to continue to be provided regardless of outside funding! However, to keep up with the growing needs of the community and to maintain the operation of our other social services and special projects such as the soup kitchen, eye, dental & health care, clean water and environmental initiatives, we continue to rely on your generous donations. With your generous support, we hope to continue providing these invaluable services to the local community and engage in many new initiatives in the coming year. Please follow the links below for more details, updated reports, and news. Should you like to read the full report with financial statement, you can locate it on Lha's website. Below are some quick facts about Lha's successes during 2012 and we hope for continued success in 2013! Thank you once again for your continued support, as we could not have achieved these things without you, the volunteers, and of course the dedication of the students and the community. Sincerely, Important Initiatives, Report for 2012: QUICK FACTS FROM 2003 TO 2012 |
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Lha’s Annual Report 2012
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