By Lindsey Wagner/lwagner@dailyprogress.com
May 24, 2007: In China’s rural Qinghai province, there are few medical centers to serve the nomadic peoples and scattered villagers. Many women give birth at home without the aid of a physician.
The Tibetan Healing Fund tonight will host an event at the Boar’s Head Inn to raise money for the construction of a natural-birth and health-training center in Qinghai.
“It is not only going to be a maternity hospital, but it will train rural Tibetan women to be midwives and go back to their villages and save babies and women,” event organizer Marjorie Sargent said.
The center is expected to cost $10,000, and the fund hopes to raise between $6,000 and $10,000 this evening.The event, titled Tibetan Healing: Crossing the Himalayas, Bringing Together Great Hearts and Minds, features speakers from the University of Virginia and the Rose Group for Cross-Cultural Understanding, as well as traditional Tibetan music and dancing. Dr. Kunchok Gyaltsen, a Tibetan doctor and founder of the Tibetan Healing Fund, will discuss the need for the Tibetan birth center.
The Healing Fund was established to help improve the Tibetan quality of life, said Gyaltsen Druknya, a native Tibetan and Charlottesville resident. The group’s latest project is the natural-birth center, which will incorporate both traditional Tibetan medicine and Western methods.
Druknya explained that Tibetan medicine will be included in part because it entails less expensive treatments, as the tradition is herb-based.
“It’s going to integrate Tibetan medicine … Tibetan culture and Tibetan tradition with Western, modern methods,” Sargent said. “They’re also going to help with the education of teaching people better healthcare.”
Rose Nan-Ping Chen, president of the Rose Group for Cross-Cultural Understan-ding and Chinese by birth, said the cause is particularly worthwhile because of the few medical centers in Qinghai’s rural area.
China’s overall infant mortality rate in 2002 was 30 per 1,000 births, according to UNICEF. Qinghai’s infant mortality rate, however, was more than double that – 66.3 per 1,000 births – in 1990, the most recent year for which Chinese government estimates were readily available Wednesday.
“It’s like when you go see [Tibet], they live in a time capsule,” Chen said. “We enjoy all of the modern knowledge and a way to help them, and if we can do that, I think it’s a wonderful thing.”
In addition to helping native Tibetans, Druknya hopes to also “educate people and probably foster more nomadic culture understanding.”
The event will be held from 5:30 to 11:30 this evening. Tickets are $100 per person or $190 per couple and can be purchased at the door or in advance at Salon Druknya by calling 979-0012.
