Tibetan Healing Fund works to improve health and education by acting as a catalyst for community-based training, education and healthcare initiatives.  Our projects address education and primary health care for rural Tibetan children, women and their families in the Tibetan regions of Amdo, Kham and U-Tsang. Since 2001, Tibetan Healing Fund has or is currently implementing the following projects:

Health

​Improving the health of women and children by providing public health education and increased access to quality and essential health services.

Current and Past Health Projects:
  • Tibetan Natural Birth and Health Training Center “Birth Center”(opened July 25, 2009)
  • Community Midwife Training
  • Community Health Education and Outreach
  • Yushu Earthquake Disaster Relief
  • Scholarships for Postgraduate and Medical School
  • Tibetan Maternal and Child Health System Resource Textbooks
  • Training of Trainers (TOT)
  • Community Health Assessment

Education

Providing teacher training and improved access to quality education as a way to enhance the livelihood of individuals and the community.

Current and Past Education Projects
  • Children’s Fund
  • Tibetan Heritage Primer Textbooks
  • Teacher Training
  • Improve Access to Quality Education and School Improvement Projects

Where We Work

Initially Tibetan Healing Fund project sites were located mainly in the Tso-Ngon Province also formerly known as Amdo (Ch: Qinghai); in 2006, THF expanded to other Tibetan regions of Kham and U-Tsang also known as Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan Provinces and the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).  Projects are located in rural and nomadic regions. Communities in these areas are mainly pastoral; farming and herding livestock drive the economy.

Geographically, Tibet evokes images of soaring snow covered mountains, large valleys filled with yaks and sheep.  The Tibetan plateau is the headwaters of five of the most important rivers in Asia: the Ganges, Mekong, Yellow, Yangtze and Brahmaputra.  Any changes to the movement, distribution, and quality of water on the Tibetan plateau will have effects to hundreds of millions of people.

The Tibetan region is known to be extensive in many natural resources but is largely inaccessible and unused.  Particularly, those natural resources including petroleum, lead, chromium, zinc, copper, coal and iron. Only borax, salt, and potash (taken from the lakes in the Plateau of Tibet) are produced in significant amounts.  Aside from mineral extraction and construction industries, which are dominated by the Han Chinese, the Tibetan economy is mainly pastoral; farming and herding drive the economy. The majority of the Tibetans (80%) live in the remote, rural areas.  Herders, many of whom are nomadic, raise yaks, goats, sheep, horses, and mules in the mountain and plateau pastures. Farmland is limited in area and the growing season is short. Summers are short and dry and winters are long and cold. There is very little arable land available and the main crops grown are barley, wheat, buckwheat, rye, potatoes, rapeseed and assorted vegetables.  An additional source of income in Tso-Ngon Province (Ch: Qinghai) is the caterpillar fungus or Cordyceps, which grow on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Cordyceps is widely used in Chinese medicine and is gaining popularity in the West.

The grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau are a unique environment but significant and potentially irreversible erosion is increasing on the grasslands.  Growing degradation of the Tibetan Plateau grasslands is threatening the traditional lifestyle of Tibetan herders and farmers. Livestock production on the vast grasslands of the Tibetan Plateau forms the foundation of the Tibetan farm economy and herders’ lives.  The decrease in livestock and grasslands is gradually undermining the traditional Tibetans’ way of like that has sustained them for thousands of years. Recently many families have migrated far from their native pasture; others are now being relocated by the government to new permanent settlements.