Lama pays visit (From Penarth Times)

Lama pays visit

A TIBETAN Buddhist lama paid a special visit to St Cyres Comprehensive School last Friday.

Lopon Ogyen Ten'dzin Rinpoche gave talks to Year Nine pupils and to the sixth form Religious Studies class about Buddhism and about his home village of Pemako in northern India.

Pemako is in a remote Himalayan region of outstanding natural beauty with a vast range of rare animal and plant life.

However it has no roads, electricity and until recently no schools.

Lopon Rinpoche founded a small school in 2001 to enable local children to be educated.

A little later he added a nursery to free girls from the traditional duty of caring for younger brothers and sisters.

The school now cares for 68 children, many of them being boarders from other remote villages.

But the facilities at the school are minimal and are in urgent need of updating.

By travelling to Britain Lopon Rinpoche hopes to establish links between schoolchildren here and in Pemako and to raise funding to extend the school and to build a small clinic on the same site.

Head of RE, Chris Stephens said: "We were very privileged to hear first hand about this tremendous work. It gave us all, staff and pupils, a vivid sense of how lucky we are to have such a vast range of facilities here in St Cyres. Pupils responded immediately by asking how they could help the children of Pemako."