Newsletter

 

Dear Friends,

The year 2011 was yet another successful year for Choki Traditional Art School (CTAS). The school witnessed during the year lots of exciting events, progress and achievements.

The year 2011 had the enrolment of students for the first time touch 113 students with 86 boys and 27 girls. A total of 10 boys and 10 girls were admitted this year. The school received many opportunities to participate in national competitions and trainings organized by different agencies. Three of our students bagged top prizes in the “Tiger Conservation” Art Competition organized by the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature (RSPN) in Thimphu.  The students from CTAS for the first time also participated in the contemporary art training at VAST (Modern Art Studio) in Thimphu. The training was useful and equipped students with skills and techniques besides gaining experience and exposure in contemporary art.

For the first time in the history of CTAS, we were able to start a special course on computers and graphic design. This was made possible with generous gifts of computers from HP and Fontana Foundation. This support now gives new opportunities to the students to hone their skills and become more qualified for employment in the future.

I take this opportunity to thank and express my gratitude all the support and contributions rendered to the successful growth of CTAS.   We also appreciate the generosity and personal contributions of all our supporters and well wishers whose support has let CTAS evolve into a successful training Institute.

On behalf of all the students and staff of CTAS, I would like to wish all our readers a very Happy New Year 2012.

Please for more information and update news about the school, visit our website at www.chokischool.com where we have uploaded our 2011 annual newsletter.  Hope you all will enjoy reading this issue.

Thank you

News update

Dear friends,

With great pleasure I would like to update some news about our school from March till June 2011.

 HIGHLIGHTS:

• On 11th March we held, with support from the ministry of health, a one day workshop in our school on the topic of “WATER SAFTY PLAN”. Main topics were how to take care of a water source, maintenance of the water and basic technique on how to handle water problems.  The session was very educational and we learned a lot about the water management.  The school also received 1 set of the water tools and equipments.

 

• A very strong unexpected wind blew off our boys’ hostel roof and damaged the roof of our old academic building as well. Nonetheless it is fortunate that none of the students were harmed although a class was in session at the time.

The roofs of the two buildings are repaired with the financial support of Koenraad Foulon and the Choki Family. We were fortunate to be able to do the repair work much faster, before the rainy season and before much inconvenience is cause to the students and the school.

• The new admission exams for the new students took place at the school on 25th March.  55 students had applied for the 2011 admission. The admission test consisted of an oral and a written test. In the end 10 boys and 10 girls were selected for the 2011 academic program. The school now has a total of 113 students consisting of 86 boys and 27 girls studying in the school.

• On Monday, 11th April, a one day intra house volleyball competition was organized and played in the school volleyball ground. The students were divided into four groups/houses, namely Tak, Singye, Chung and Druk. At the end of the competition, Druk house emerged as the winners for this year’s volleyball tournament. The competition was witnessed by staff and teachers of CTAS along with many spectators from the neighboring Kabesa village. All the students and spectators watched the competition very patiently and cheered for their respective houses.  Small prizes were distributed to the winners and the best players of the competition.

• The 11th Foundation day of CTAS was celebrated on 21st May 2011 at the school campus in Kabesa. Sonam Rinchen, The Director of Human resources, Ministry of Labour and Human Resources graced the occasion. Amont the guests were also government officials, Graduates of CTAS, local villagers and other well wishers of CTAS. The day started with the traditional marching ceremony (wine offering) and an address by the Chief Guest followed by a class room visit. A cultural program was staged by the students of CTAS including traditional, modern and mask dances. Following the cultural program, a grand lunch was hosted by the school for all the guest and students. The day ended happily with all the guests, students and teachers of CTAS dancing the Tashi Labey – a traditional song to conclude a special occasion and to bless all the people with peace, prosperity and good health.   

• The school received as a gift eight computers and one printer from Hewlett Packard and the Fontana Foundation.  It has always been a wish of CTAS to have computers in the school so that our students would have the opportunity to learn basic computer skills and computer aided design (CAD). Everything these days is done on computers, from making an application to sending an email, it is important to be familiar with computers. Therefore, we will make the best use of these computers in our school to teach our students computer knowledge and skills. The students and staff of CTAS would like to once again thank HP and the Fontana Foundation for making this valuable gift to our school.  Thank you very very much!

 

• The Principal and one senior teacher of CTAS attended a two week workshop on “Training the Trainers (TOT)” From 23rd May till 4th June, 2011 in Thimphu. The workshop was organized by the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources (MoLHR). It was the first time that such a workshop was organized for the private sector. The workshop was very helpful as it taught all the trainers how to develop standard teaching systems and to improve their personal teaching skills. The new knowledge and skills acquired from this training will be shared with all the other staff of CTAS and will be used to further strengthen and improve our teaching skills.  
• Mid term exam: This year our mid-term examination was preponed to 11th June because of Local Government Elections. The students will break for summer vacation for two weeks from 18th June till 3rd July.

• Health advocacy program was conducted on 10th June 2011 for women.

The educational program on Uterus cancer for women was conducted by one of the senior Health Assistances (HA) from the Ministry of Health in CTAS campus. The one hour session was attended by the girls, female staff of CTAS and few other female housewives from the neighborhood.

The program mainly focused on the causes and symptoms of the uterus cancer and how it can be prevented. The program concluded with an early dinner to all the participants in CTAS multi-purpose hall.

Thanking you!

With best regards,

Sonam

Hello!

 

Dear friends,

Kuzuzangpola and a warm greetings to you!

On behalf of the students and staff of CTAS, I would like to

extend our sincere appreciation for your continued support

extended to our school. We would like to wish you all a very successful

2011 year and we hope the New Year brings you happiness and success.

 

I am pleased to inform you that we have had a very successful year in

2010 with tremendous progress in the school. The newsletter summarizes all the events that have taken place over the past 12 months which we will be posting on our website www.chokischool.com very shortly.

We hope you will enjoy reading it.

I take this opportunity to thank and express our gratitude to all the supporters for their valuable time and contributions to Choki Traditional Art School. Your involvement in our project has let CTAS evolve into a reliable training institute for many disadvantaged young men and women of Bhutan giving them new hope and life.

Thank you!

We will look forward to your continued support.

With best regards,

(Sonam Choki)

Principal

CTAS News update

Dear Friends,

We are happy to update you on the school progress.

Three students and I will participate in “Bhutan-Sacred Art of the Himalayan” at the Rietberg Museum in Zurich from 22nd September till 7th October. We will be demonstrating carving, painting and embroidery in the exhibition. This trip is sponsored by Fontana Foundation, Switzerland. Please see the photo of the participants in the photo section.

Kanjur Lingkor ( Kanjur meaning 108 volumes of Buddha’s teachings script).

Coinciding the auspicious day of the first Sermon of Lord Buddha on 15th July, the people of Kabesa mark the day by taking these holy scripts on their back and going around all the village chanting mantras, blesses people who passes by and this is for the benefit of people living in Kabesa for peace and good health and to wish for considerate weather for good harvest.

Our school also participated in this program by offering tea and juices to the people. This program was held in CTAS in front of Guru Rinpoche Statue. We have updated some picture of this on the photo section.

CTAS products are available on Ebay online.  To see some of our products on sale please visit https://worldofgood.ebay.com (select Art category and then click on Drawing & painting).

5. The intra house Debate competition was held on 28th August in the school. The program was conducted on Saturady in the evening for two hours. Saff and students has attended the program. We are happy to see the improvement on confidence and speaking.  Please see some picture of it. 

 

We thank you for your continue support and your interest in our work. 

Yours Sincerely,

Sonam

 

CTAS News June

 

Dear friends,

I would like to update some news about our school.

Our 10th school foundation celebration on 17th May was very successful with many of our well wishers and supporters from abroad who have come all the way to celebrate this joy occasion together. Lyempo Dorji Wangdi, Minister of Labour and Human Resources (MoLHR) was our chief Guest and few organization, ex-students and neighbors attend the ceremony. I have posted few pictures of it.

The day was also marked by handing over of CTAS responsibility by Mr. David Bidwell, Vice president of Himalayan Youth Foundation (HYF) to Mr. Mario, President of Fontana Foundation (FF).  For more details please visit our school website at www.chokischool.com

Basket ball Project which is sponsored by Berlin Basketball team Alba and the Energy company Vattenfall, betterplace Germany is also successfully completed. This project has bought great enthusiasm in the school and it is a great entertainment for our students who never had an opportunity to play this game before in their life. Now some of our students have really picked up the game so fast and are helping others to play.  Girls too are taking interest to learn and play this game. The first intra school Basket ball competition was held on 19th June, some pictures of this is posted in the photographs section.

 

One of our ex-students visited the school on 8th June and offered a cash donation to the school as an appreciation for the support and education that he has received from the school. He is now working as painting contractor and he is one of the success stories of CTAS. For more detail please visit our website site.

The school will have the Mid-term examination from 13th July till 21st July and then will have ten days as summer break till 1st August. Students are presently preparing for their midterm exam and are looking forward to the vacation. Some of the students already got employment for the vacation to do the painting of houses here in the village at Kabesa and some looking forward to be with their family.

Until I update the next information or news, we would like to thank you very much for your support and for giving this wonderful opportunity for our students.

Yours Sincerely,

Sonam

CTAS Update

 

 

Dear  friends,

We hope all of you are keeping fine.

We would also like to inform our donors and well-wishers that we have been able to introduce weaving and embroidery course from this year in our school. A beautiful traditional gate completed and a big statue of 2nd Buddha is constructed on the wall of old building and the painting will be complete very soon. The construction of a three storey traditional house which will be our additional classrooms is underway. These are some of the projects ongoing at the school. Please view some picture I posted  on the photo site.

Today we have 85 boys and 20 girls studying in the school.

For detail information please visit our website at www.chokischool.com

We thank you and we look forward to your continue support.

Yours sincerely,

Sonam

News update

 

Dear friends,

I would like to inform you we have been able to conduct our programs for 2009 very effectively and also have been able to get supports from our well wishers for the development of infrastructure facilities.

This year 9 students have graduated from our school after finishing 7 years and 5 years of training in painting and carving. This year we will have 15 new admission seats for the girls and 5 for boys. In 2010 we will have 110 students studying in our school (28 girls and 82 boys).

We will also be introducing weaving and embroidery course from 2010 March and this new course will be for 4 years duration.

The ongoing projects at school at the moment are:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.       <!--[endif]-->Construction of 2 storey traditional house which will have 12 classrooms.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.       <!--[endif]-->Construction of Basketball court

<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.       <!--[endif]-->Construction of 2nd Buddha image on the old building

<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.       <!--[endif]-->Construction of fencing & gate

Our student’s will be back from winter vacation on 1st March 2010.

Please see our Newsletter attached for the update information of the school or our website at www.chokischool.com

We thank you for everything you did for us and look forward to your continue support.

Yours sincerely,

Sonam

INVITATION FOR CTAS DEDICATION CEREMONY PROGRAM

 

Dear friends and supporters,

HYF and CTAS have the pleasure of inviting you, on behalf of the staff and students of Choki Traditional Art School (CTAS), to the celebration on 17th May 2010 of the CTAS  School Foundation Day and the Formal Inauguration of Girl’s Admission to the school.

We will be indeed very happy and highly honored if you can join us for the celebrations. We have officially designated Boonserm Tours & Travel, Bhutan and escape2nepal, Nepal to facilitate travel arrangements and organize visas and tour programs for all CTAS guests. Therefore, contact them for Bhutan; boonserm.tours@gmail.com and for Nepal;  steve@escape2nepal.com.

Please confirm your visit at the earliest so that we can make the necessary arrangements.

If you require any further information and help please do not hesitate to let me know. 

We look forward to your participation. Thank you!

 With best regards,

Sonam

 

Project accomplished report

Dear friends,

Greeting to from Bhutan!

We would like to thank you very much for your donation.  We have been able to accomplish the following items for our school from the total fund $1298 which we have received in our account.

English and National language books

Safety belts and helmets for our outdoor practical works

Wooden benches for our classroom worth

Sponsorship for year 2009.

Please see the photographs of the gifts which have been accomplished through your donation. We have also posted few photos of school for your kind information.

Your support in this regards has help us to provide better facilities to our students and also safety measures which will help our students especially when they go out for their outdoor practical works.

Thank you very much!

With best regards,

Sonam

Acknowledgement & project updates

 

I would like to thank you for your good wishers and for your donation to our school.

We had our school consecration ceremony for the two newly buildings namely the girl’s hostel and the dining hall and the celebration of the school foundation on 16th and 17th May. Both the program went very well and we are happy to share this event photographs with you.  Please have a look at our programs picture on the photo section and also for more update on www.chokischool.com . The school has come up with lot of achievement in terms of both academic and infrastructures.

With support from the betterplace juniors and the additional budget from one of the well wishers from abroad, we have been able to provide complete rooms (A small house) for our sculpture students to work. Please see the picture of the house in the photo section.  The project has enabled the school to provide spacious rooms for our students to concentrate and learn their lessons. 

Our sincerely gratitude to the betterplace juniors for your success in getting our school a basket ball court which is one of the most essential project for our school and to which our students are very much looking forward. Your support in this project will enable our students to take active participation in the sports and promote good health and entertainment.

We would also like to inform our well wishers that your sponsorship has helped us to provide completely free education to the disadvantaged youth of Bhutan. These students enrolled in CTAS will be given opportunity to under go training for the next 6 years. On completion of the training program, these students will become skilled professional artist contributing to the promotion and preservation of art and craft in the country. Besides, they will also be able to earn their livelihood and contribute to the economy.

The staff and students of CTAS would like to thank whole heartedly and express our gratitude to betterplace for your support and for making a difference to the lives of the students enrolled at CTAS.

Thank you note!

Dear supporters and well wishers, I would like to extend my appreciation and gratitude for your support extended to my project. I would also like to thank all of you who have donated in fulfilling our wish list posted in the betterplace website. Thank you very much! I am happy to share this information with you. From this year we have been able to enroll girls in our program for the first time since the establishment of our school in 1999. We have enrolled 15 girls and 10 boys for this year’s course during the new admission taken on 5th April. The environment in the school has become much lively with the girls around and also with the two new buildings completed. Till last year we don’t have proper kitchen and dining room but now with the completion of the building all the students are able to enjoy their meals in the new dining hall. The dining hall will serve as multi-purpose hall where the students will be able to show some cultural programs on the stage during the weekends. The painting of the hall is done by our 3rd and 4th year students. The school in overall has come up with many new development and the facilities for our students to enjoy while mastering their skills. On behalf of the students and school, I would like to thank everybody for giving this opportunity for our students. Please see the recent photos of our school and the dining hall which is painted by our students. With best greetings and regards, Sonam

Invitation for CTAS Cermony.

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your continuing support. I hope this note finds you in good health and spirit.

I would like to inform you that this year on 17th May we are organizing the consecration of the new buildings at CTAS, namely the girls’ hostel, the administrative block & the dining hall. This consecration will be carried out in the traditional manner with religious ceremonies, prayers and sacred dances. We will be inviting local guests and parents for the occasion. I am aware that this notice is late and you may have already planned your vacation, but in case you haven’t and are interested to attend the ceremony, we would be most happy to facilitate your visit through Boonserm Tours and send you the travel details for the ceremony and for possible side trips if you would let us know in advance. At this time of the year, the climate in Bhutan would be also warm and pleasant.

If you are not able to make it this May, we are planning for a grand 10th Anniversary ceremony (of the founding of the CTAS School) in the spring of 2010 with the Queen of Bhutan as the guest of honour to grace the occasion.  It would be our pleasure to invite you for this grand occasion which would provide an opportunity for the students at CTAS to meet you in person and express their appreciation to each of you for the generous support extended to them. It would be a memorable time for the students and staff to spend the day together with you at CTAS.

Please do let me know if you are interested to come, I can send you the detail program for this years May consecration ceremony for your information. If you have any questions or queries, or wish to plan a side trip, you can write to me at my email address somchoki@yahoo.com

With best regards,

Sonam

News from CTAS

Dear Supporters and well wishers,

I am happy to inform you that the year 2008 was a very successful year for our school. We have been able to provide much better quality education and better facilities for our students. I take this opportunity to thank and express my heartiest appreciation for your generous support extended to our school which has enabled us to achieve this success.

Today we have given the student's their performances report/results and all the students will leave for two months winter vacation from tomorrow. The school will reopen for the new academic year 2009 from 1st March.  We are also very glad to inform you that from 2009 for the first time we will be giving an opportunity for 15 disadvantage girls to study at our school.

This year total two students graduating from the school. One from the carving section and other from painting section. The total of 12 students have so far graduated from our school. All these students are employed in government and some working in the private companies.

I will update more in the next blog.

Till then on behalf of the staff and students, I wish you a very happy new year!

 

With best regards,

Sonam

 

Donation for sculpture received!

 

Dear Well wishers,

I would like to inform you that we have received Euro 1590 in our school account. We would like to thank all of you for your support and especially to Anton Kleihues’s. The support and initiatives from such young people is truly moving and a good example for our students and for all of us.   We will use this fund as an additional budget to Euro 1166 which we have received from Lynn and Dennis, UK for the construction of a small house which will be use as an additional classrooms for our sculpture students.

At present the collection of raw materials such as woods, stone, sand etc is going on and we are planning to do the construction as soon as the school leaves for winter vacation for two months in January and February.  The construction will be completed by March 2009 before student’s returns from their winter vacation.

I will keep you inform of the progress of the project and once again on behalf of the school, I would like to thank you very much for your donation and support.

Yours sincerely,

Sonam

Principal

Mr. Koenraad and his Daughter Leila's Visit!

Dear all,

Mr. Koenraad Foulon and his daughter Leila visited CTAS on 20th August 2008. We are very pleased to show him the girls hostel which is being named after his daughter - "Leila House". The new hostel with the girls' facilites will start to accomodate new girls students from 2009. This will be a major milestone for CTAS' growth as the project will enrol its first girls students who are more vulnerable in rural parts of the country. The inclusion of girls students will also pave way for the addition of new courses which will further help preserve the traditional arts and crafts of Bhutan.

Another part of the contruction, a kithen/multi-purpose building also sponsored by Mr. Koenraad will start as soon as possible.

Some pictures from the CTAS files are uploaded in the picture section.

With deep appreciation.

 

SONAM

CTAS August 19th Update!

Dear friends, well-wishers and supporters,

CTAS is very excited during the last few days!!! Mr. Koenraad, who is the main supporter of the construction of girls hostel and the kitchen/dining hall will be visiting the school campus tomorrow (20th August 08). It is a great opportunity for the CTAS family to meet him and his daughter Leila Foulon (after whom the hostel will be named)  in person. The construction of the girls hostel has been going on full swing during the last few months, even though the monsoon rain made the unpaved road slippery and difficult for the transportion of construction materials from the town to the school. The roofing of the school has been recently completed and now the works for the interior parts will start as soon as possible. This year, Bhutan saw an unsual monsoon season with rainfall everyday which directly hampered the pace of construction.

Ofcourse, whole of Bhutan is affected this year by the unusual rainy season. The roads are blocked most of the time, the highways have claimed more than 40 lives in one month alone due to landslides. The food prices (inflation) have reached an all time high and a collapse of a single Bhutan Telecom tower has reduced the speed of Internet to a crawl and affected the mobile phone users too.

Luckily, the students have returned from their short summer break safely and are back to their classes while also getting prepared to meet Mr. Koenraad and his daughter tomorrow. Hopefully, it won't rain tomorrow.

Lastly, I would also like to thank everyone on betterplace for your support and good wishes . Please do visit our blog posts which will be updated frequently.

With warm regards,

 

SONAM CHOKI

(Principal)

Smithsonian Folk Life festival news!

Dear Well wishers,

I am very happy to inform you that we ( 2 students, myself and a instructor ) have return back from the Smithsonian Folk life exhibition which was held on 24th June till 6th July in Washington D.C, USA.

The Festival was well organized and all of us are very impressed by the number of people turning up in the festival every day. The visitors seemed genuinely interested and impressed with our work. We have Dawa (student) who was demonstrating carving work while Sangay (student) was demonstrating the painting work. Myself and the instructor was a presenter and our role there was to explain and answer any of their inquiries.

Our student’s participation in the paintings and carving for the temple was so well received and the temple was one of the highlights of the festival.

We are very grateful to HYF and the sponsor for our trip to USA which has not only gave us depth of knowledge but has immensely enhanced our experience and has helped in promoting our school.

We also would like to thank Smithsonian for putting Bhutan on the map for so many people who had never heard of Bhutan and others who had no idea where it is. We are very sure that we will have many new visitors to Bhutan and to CTAS as a result of the Festival.

With very best wishes,

Sonam

CTAS update

Dear friends,

I would like to update you on the news about our school and also about the music club which we have formed very recently. We have now received all the music equipments which we have proposed to betterplace, Germany. We have now both traditional and modern music equipments facilities for our students. Since we have started our music club, the students have been very eager and very happy to be a part of the club to learn about music. Thank you very much for all the support our friends have provided to our school, your donation indeed will and have made big difference to our students life.

I am also very glad to send you some photographs of the new girl’s hostel construction and which we are planning to complete by December 2008.

I would also like to inform our well-wishers that the construction to further improve the existing feeder road has just begun few days ago and will be completed by July. Which then will help the school in reaching all the materials and ration without much problems and complication to our school site.

Please see some latest development of the girl’s hostel, road construction and the music equipments in the photo session of the project blog.

I will be keeping you updates on the news and progress from time to time.Once again on behalf of the school, thank you very much for everything!

With regards,Sonam(Principal)

Update May 2nd 2008!

Dear Supporters and well-wishers,

We would like to acknowledge with great gratitude that we received a total of Euro 1060 mainly for the purpose of purchasing three traditional Bhutanese musical instruments and a scholarship.

We would like to let you know that we have already placed the orders for the musical instruments which should arrive after sometime. (Normally, traditional instruments are not readily available in the market and therefore, we have to place order). As soon as we receive these instruments, we will update accordingly along with the pictures.

One of the other proud news from CTAS is that this year, two of our students and staff will be participating in in the upcoming Smithsonian Festival which will be held in Washington DC from 25th June till 7th July in which Bhutan will be featured as one of the countries.

Meanwhile, please expect some new pictures of the CTAS project activities next week.

In appreciation and gratitude.

Sonam

CTAS April Update!

Dear supporters and well-wishers,

Thank you for your continued support for our project. This is another update blog from us.

We have already purchased all the musical instruments (the pictures of which are attached for reference) and very soon a room which we have been using as our cultural store room will be vacated for our music room. The new store room will be ready by this week and we are planning to set up all the instruments in this room.

Actually we didn’t expect getting this support in music so instantly and that too for the entire set. That is one reason we have to think about putting all of it in a permanent room so that all the students can enjoy this facility anytime when they have free time in the school.

With regard to sponsorship, I have mentioned to Joana that we will use the sponsorships on the ‘pool basis’ until we have enough sponsors. This is just to make sure that there is no incontentments between those students who are sponsored and not sponsored. We are hoping that within 2 years we will be able to find enough sponsors for all our students which will then allow us to spend the collected fund as intended. However, we do have a record of all the sponsors and how much students are sponsored, it is just that we don’t want to bring misunderstandings and segregate students between sponsored and not sponsored.

On behalf of the school and students, once again I would like to thank you for your very kind support extended to our school. If you have any questions or anything we can do, please do write to me at somchoki@yahoomail.com or principal@chokischool.com. I will be very happy to hear from you and respond to any queries that you may have.

In deep appreciation.Sonam

News from CTAS

Dear Well wishers and supporters,

I am happy to inform you that we have been able to start our school without any difficulty. This year we have admitted thirty new students in our school and they will be learning drawing, paintings, carving and sculpture. As we have mentioned in our project as of now our school offers three specialization course in scroll painting (Fresco), wood carving and sculpture. They will be trained in the school for 4 to 6 years and during these periods we also tend to teach them other subjects like Basic English, Math and Dzongkha alone with some other co-curricular activities such as gardening, cultural activities and games.

All the students are very excited and happy that we will now have an additional of a music club in the school. Since our school is located about 10 miles from the Thimphu city in a remote village, your donation for the music will entertain all of us and add livelier environment for the students. We have purchased the items and very soon we will install it and have a separate room for all these musical instruments for our students to play during free time. We will also take the photo of it and post it on our blog for you to see. Thank you very much for making this happen in our school especially for these students who actually comes from very remote and have no access to these kind of facilities.

We are very pleased that we have been able to improve the overall of the school such as we have been able to give complete free education to the neediest ones through your sponsorship and offer other facilities for our students. Today we have 85 students studying in our school, all of them are provided with food, lodging and tuition. We would like to thank each and everyone for your contributions in making this possible for us to help the neediest students coming from all parts of Bhutan.

The students get up at 5:30 AM , then about 40 Mins. they have the morning prayer followed by morning study and breakfast. The class begins from 9 till 4:30 PM and they have about 1 hour of games/curricular activities time. At 5:45 PM they have evening prayer follow by dinner and night study. At 9:30 PM lights will be put off. So this is the time table our students follow and have been following for the last 9 years.

I will be updating you on the progress of the school from time to time. In mean while we would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all of you for your moral support and for the donation.

Sonam Choki(Principal)

Project News!

Dear Supporter and friends,

I apologies for not able to update the news as often as I should be doing.

We have already purchased all the music instruments and very soon a room which we have been using as our cultural store room will be vacant for our music room. The new store room will be ready by this week and we plan to set up this entire music instrument there.

Actually I didn’t expect getting this support in music so instantly and to be frank whole of the set. That is one reason we have to think about putting all of it in a permanent room so that all the students can enjoy this facility anytime when they have free time in the school.

With regard to sponsorship, I have mentioned to Joana that we will use the sponsor on the pool basics until we have enough sponsors. This is just to make sure that there is no jealousy among the ones sponsored and not sponsored. We are targeting may be within 2 years we will be able to find enough sponsors for all our students which will then allow us to identify each students under specific sponsors. I hope that is ok for your sponsors through Betterplace. But we do have a record of all the sponsors and how much students are sponsored, it is just that we don’t want to bring some misunderstanding and segregate students between sponsored and not sponsored.

On behalf of the school and students, once again I would like to thank you for your support extended to our school. If you have any questions or anything we can do, please do let me know. You can reach me at my email address somchoki@yahoomail.com. I will be very happy to hear from you.

With regards,Sonam