NEW DELHI – Hollywood stars Richard Gere and Goldie Hawn have together offered about $1 million to improve the condition of Tibetans living in exile in a filthy north Indian town, officials said on Saturday.
Gere and Hawn, longtime supporters of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, made the offer after seeing unhygienic living conditions in McLeodganj, headquarters of the so-called Tibetan government-in-exile, Tibetan and Indian officials said.
“They were concerned about the condition of the roads and sanitation when they visited us in October last year,” a senior Tibetan official told Reuters by phone from McLeodganj, which adjoins the town of Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh state.
“Gere in fact sent some contributions immediately after his return and had promised to do more. That seems to be coming through now,” said the official who did not want to be named.
McLeodganj, a sleepy little town in the Himalayan foothills, has been home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile since the early 1960s.
Tibetan and Indian officials said McLeodganj and Dharamsala, which together have a population of 25,000, had to tackle problems created by a growing population and an increase in tourists. Some 10,000 Tibetan exiles live there.
Residents have to cope with pot-holed and congested roads that are frequently hit by landslides, a poor sewage system that overflows during the rainy season, lack of adequate street lights, parking and a traffic management system, they said.
The Tibetan exiles, led by the Dalai Lama, fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and an estimated 120,000 refugees are distributed across India.
Gere, who converted to Buddhism in the early 1970s, is a passionate advocate of the Tibetans and has in the past contributed to Tibetan charities through the Gere Foundation.
