By Rosamond Hutt
A charity was today welcoming a Tibetan refugee to Cambridge, the latest in a series of scholars to undertake an intensive English-language study programme in the city.
Chokey Dolma, a teacher, writer and researcher who lives with the exiled Tibetan community in north India, is on a three-month placement in Cambridge arranged by local charity English Language Scholarships for Tibetans (ELST).
The 37-year-old is studying English at Studio Cambridge and is staying as a guest of Girton College, Cambridge University’s oldest women’s residential college.
Ms Dolma teaches at the Dolma Ling Nunnery in north India and is passionate about Tibetan poetry, children’s literature and women’s education.
And she has vowed to make the most of the scholarship and her first visit to the West, using the experience to help advance the education of the exiled Tibetan community.
She said: “I am determined to make the best use of this opportunity. I have so much learn from Cambridge.
“In return I want to help Tibetan people in the field of education, especially the women. We need to preserve our Tibetan culture; it has so much to offer the world.
“This preservation goes hand in hand with our Tibetan community in India and Tibet moving forward and living successfully and meaningfully in the contemporary world.”
Ms Dolma fled Tibet, aged 20, fearing she would be imprisoned after some of her close relatives were detained by the Chinese authorities.
She crossed the Himalayas in a gruelling 33-day journey on foot and arrived in Nepal before joining the Tibetan community in exile in north India.
Ms Dolma is the eleventh Tibetan student to be brought to Cambridge since ELST was established in 1997. Past scholars include three doctors of traditional Tibetan medicine, a translator for the Dalai Lama and a cabinet minister from the Tibetan government in exile.
Founder and Trustee of ELST, Hilary Papworth, said: “It is a high-level scholarship. We take the brightest and the best young people in the Tibetan exile community and give them help to take their community forward.
“Our first scholar was a female doctor and it was such a success we began to look for ways to make it permanent.”
Since 2001 the charity has also been arranging summer placements for Cambridge University students teaching English to Tibetan communities in India.
The volunteers learn from their experience of meeting young Tibetans and helping them improve their English language skills.
On a previous visit to India some volunteers met the Dalai Lama, who has also forged a personal connection with Cambridge, visiting the city on his first trip to the West in 1973.
Addressing the group of ELST volunteers, the Dalai Lama said: “Everything depends on education. As soon as we came to India, when we started the work of rehabilitation, we put every effort into education, modern education, so the people who are involved in education have great potential and a great opportunity to make a contribution.”
