Dharamsala: The world’s senior-most ‘children’ – 13 grandmothers from the across the globe – believe they have a special responsibility in rescuing a world gone mad.
Hailing from Asia, Africa, Mexico, the Artic Circle, the Amazon and the US, the grandmothers have floated the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers to preserve the indigenous ways of life for the next seven generations.
The “indigenous” grandmothers are meeting in Dharamsala, the seat of the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government-in-exile between Oct 14 and Oct 20, to pray for global peace and unity.
The meet, being hosted by Tibetan Grandmother Tsering Dolma Gyaltong of the Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA), promises to be an inspiring cultural exchange between indigenous grandmothers and grandmothers of the Tibetan community.
The TWA, founded in Lhasa in 1959, was restarted by Tsering in India in 1984. It is one of the largest NGOs-in-exile with 47 regional chapters and 14,000 members. Members of the TWA will honour Tsering for her service to the Tibetan people at the meet.
The global alliance of grandmothers urges all to pray and work for “healing Mother Earth and all her inhabitants for the next seven generations”.
“Only our ancestors’ teachings can take us into the light,” said a member working to preserve divergent world cultures. “We will do our bit,” she added modestly.
“We look to further our vision through the realisation of projects that protect our diverse cultures – lands, medicines, languages and ceremonial ways of prayer and through projects that educate and nurture our children,” the grandmas declared at their first meet.
In the spring of 2005, they met in New Mexico and approved four projects to further their vision: developing a website to disseminate teachings; creating a global network of grandmothers’ councils and making a documentary film about the council’s efforts “For the Next Seven Generations” among others.
“This time we plan to visit more sites that have helped sustain Tibetan culture and meet the Dalai Lama,” a spokesperson of the Tibetan Women Association told IANS.
They will also film the final shots of “For the Next Seven Generations” during the course of the meet. A book “Grandmothers Counsel the World: Indigenous Women Elders Offer their Vision for our Planet” is also on the anvil.
The grandmothers try to meet every six months and travel to each other’s lands and pray for peace. In May, the grandmothers visited Mazatec grandmother Julieta Casamiro near Oaxaca in Mexico.
The grandmothers can be reached at www.grandmotherscouncil.com and www.forthenext7generations.com.
