The Tibetan Children’s Villages (TCV) in India

Dharamsala lies at the foot of the Himalayas. Thousands of Tibetan men and women live in exile in this fantastic mountainous terrain at an altitude of some 1,800 metres. Many of them fled from Chinese occupied and communist-governed Tibet.

As early as 1959, soon after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet, it was recognised that providing for refugee children without their parents woud pose a grave problem. The very first Children’s Village was set up in old wooden barracks in the town of Dharamsala high up in the region of Mc Leod Ganj. Nowadays about 1,900 children live there and receive both comprehensive healthcare and an excellent education. There are five other Children’s Villages, for example, in Ladakh in the far north of India. In total the Tibetan Children’s Villages are home to no less than 16,000 Tibetan children.

Tibetan Children’s Villages are a registered, non-profit, charitable organisation and part of SOS-Kinderdorf International, headquartered in Vienna, Austria. For forty years now the Tibetan Children’s Villages have been creating a home for Tibetan children und teenagers. It is here that they have the opportunity to experience in-depth Tibetan culture and to learn about the exile Tibetan community in Northern India. But TCV provides more than just ,khimsangs‘ - children’s homes, where children and adults live together as families: There are kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, job training centres, handicraft centres, teachers’ training centres and even small hospitals for the children.

If you would like more information about TCV, the Tibetan Childrens’ Villages, just click below:

> TCV Homepage