Khelen Fund
/k-ay-len/ : “promise”: The fulfillment of a promise to the parents and children of Chungba to invest in education to transform their community. Machik has long supported Chungba students, especially girls and young women, on the final leg of their academic journey
in post-secondary education.
in post-secondary education.
The Machik Khelen Fund (MKF) tackles the gap in educational attainment by providing need-based grants to rural Tibetan students for post-secondary education, starting with the first cohort of the Chungba Primary School who graduated high school in 2014.
Typically in the region, less than 3% of poor rural students who start first grade will enroll in a university. Thirty-eight of the original 210 Chungba students (18%) enrolled in university in 2014. “Khelen” represents the promise these young Tibetans have made to return as professionals, medical workers, teachers, and leaders for their community’s future prosperity and well being. The program provides educational and career counseling, networking opportunities, and annual summits for each class of Khelen Fund recipients. According to Dr. Losang Rabgey, Executive Director and Cofounder of Machik, and Dr. Tashi Rabgey, Strategic Director and Cofounder of Machik, “What makes us most proud is that these young Khelen Scholars are not only gaining a college education, they are also becoming pioneering role models and impassioned mentors for the next generation of rural Tibetan students making their way through primary, middle and high school.” Many MKF graduates are now also teachers elsewhere in other counties and prefectures in Tibet. Many MKF graduates who are now teachers, in Chungba and elsewhere, have already begun to win teaching awards, noted for their dedication to their students and profession. Machik’s initial promise, our first Khelen, has come full circle as these first students of the Chungba Primary School are now the ones responsible for ensuring Tibetan language education for new generations into the future.
Typically in the region, less than 3% of poor rural students who start first grade will enroll in a university. Thirty-eight of the original 210 Chungba students (18%) enrolled in university in 2014. “Khelen” represents the promise these young Tibetans have made to return as professionals, medical workers, teachers, and leaders for their community’s future prosperity and well being. The program provides educational and career counseling, networking opportunities, and annual summits for each class of Khelen Fund recipients. According to Dr. Losang Rabgey, Executive Director and Cofounder of Machik, and Dr. Tashi Rabgey, Strategic Director and Cofounder of Machik, “What makes us most proud is that these young Khelen Scholars are not only gaining a college education, they are also becoming pioneering role models and impassioned mentors for the next generation of rural Tibetan students making their way through primary, middle and high school.” Many MKF graduates are now also teachers elsewhere in other counties and prefectures in Tibet. Many MKF graduates who are now teachers, in Chungba and elsewhere, have already begun to win teaching awards, noted for their dedication to their students and profession. Machik’s initial promise, our first Khelen, has come full circle as these first students of the Chungba Primary School are now the ones responsible for ensuring Tibetan language education for new generations into the future.
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT
Meet the Tibetan woman from Chungba who placed first on college entrance exams across all Tibetan-language schools in a region of nearly 1.5 million Tibetans, in both Ganzi and Ngawa (Chinese: Aba) Prefectures. She is the first student ever from Litang County to do so and also the first in her county to be accepted at the prestigious Central University for Nationalities (CUN) in Beijing. Chime Lhamo chose to enroll in CUN’s first-ever Chinese-Tibetan bilingual law program in Beijing. In 2018, she graduated with honors with her Bachelor of Law (LLB) degree and then gained a scholarship to continue on to pursue the Master of Law (LLM) degree.
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