 |
|
||||||||
| From April through June, 2007, we will be supporting Amicus Foundation, a volunteer-run non-profit that supports a variety of projects in Bhutan. We will be providing funds for one of their specific projects, the Simtokha school and orphanage. The cost per child at this school is approximately $10 per month. Please use WNF for searching and shopping, and spread the word so we can help the children at Simtokha school and orphanage in Bhutan. | ||
|
The country is Bhutan, but Bhutan is rapidly changing.
Television and the internet have arrived in Bhutan, and the economy is slowly expanding and evolving. Even the King has admitted that "one way or another, change is coming." Yet it does not come easily. In an interview with Barbara Crossette of the New York Times, he declares that Bhutan is nestled in the Himalaya between India and China. Slightly larger than Switzerland, and home to under 700,000 people, Bhutan is perhaps the last remaining pocket of traditional Himalayan Buddhist culture. The aspiration towards enlightenment and belief in the innate goodness of human beings is widely shared by the people of Bhutan. In spite of life's suffering and hardships, the Bhutanese devotion to the teachings of loving-kindness remains ever present.
The country is almost entirely mountainous, and the economy is based heavily on forestry and subsistence agriculture. Almost all Bhutanese, about 85 percent are subsistence farmers. The low population density (Bhutan's largest city has The World Neighborhood Fund has chosen to support Amicus Foundation for the 2nd quarter of 2007. Amicus is working to preserve the profound and beautiful qualities of Bhutanese culture which could soon slip away. The foundation supports a variety of projects in Bhutan, aimed at education, medicine, women's needs and cultural preservation, helping this beautiful country enter the global community while retaining its spiritual and cultural integrity.
|
|
|
There is a country that proudly claims to be the happiest country in the whole. A country that uses "Gross National Happiness" - a term coined by their King in 1972 - to measure quality of life. This is a country that is home to the highest unclimbed peak in the world, Gangkhar Puensum (22,623 ft), upon which climbers are not allowed lest they disturb the spirits. A country that strives to stay true to their spiritual and unique cultural values above all else.
"the only factor we can fall back on, the only factor which can strengthen Bhutan's sovereignty and our different identity, is the unique culture we have." 
50,000 residents) and lack of infrastructure makes access to education often impossible. Sadly, even opportunities for spiritual study are difficult to come by, and funding for monks and nuns, so important to the cultural fabric of the country, is terribly inadequate.