By Phurbu Thinley
Dharamsala, April 16: A Domed Deputy in the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile Dolkar Lhamo Kirti was on Wednesday elected the new president of the Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA) as it concluded its six-day 9th General Body meeting that started on Friday.
Samten Choedon, former President of RTWA, Bylakoppe in South India, is TWA’s new Vice President and Tsering Yangzom Oshoe is re-elected as the association’s General Secretary for the second consecutive term.
Tenzin Dolma, former TWA executive member, Tenzin Dhardon Sherling, former TWA working staff, Tsering Kyi, former Miss Tibet (2003), currently based in Dharamsala, Yangchen Wochutsang of Switzerland, Tashi Dolma from Uttarkhand, India, Kelsang Wangmo from Delhi and Passang Dolma, former General Secretary of TWA and currently based in New York, USA, are other newly elected members.
Dolkar, who already served as the association’s president in the past, will now lead the 9th Central Executive Working Committee (CEWC) of TWA for a three-year term starting next month.
TWA’s charter allows a candidate to serve in its central office for a maximum of two consecutive terms and is eligible for re-election after a gap of three years.
The GBM is the highest decision making body of TWA, and it alone is empowered to elect the central executive members and also amend the association’s working charter. The body elects between 7 to 11 members for the central executive body.
The Organisation’s outgoing President Dr B. Tsering earlier told Phayul that some 170 members from 31 regional chapters, including Nepal and USA, were participating in the ninth GBM that concluded yesterday.
TWA, headquartered in Dharamsala, is the largest women’s organisation and the second largest NGO in the exile Tibetan community. It claims to have 49 regional chapters and over 15, 000 members worldwide, making it the second largest Tibetan NGO, next only to the pro-independence Tibetan Youth Congress.
In her farewell speech, B. Tsering said that accepting the challenge and the responsibility to hold TWA’s leadership was a “unique opportunity” as a Tibetan woman to contribute towards the empowerment of Tibetan women and further towards empowering future Tibet.
Tsering urged members both at the centre and regional levels to work in a spirit of mutual cooperation and teamwork to meet TWA’s goals. She said she had great reserve of faith that the newly elected members would produce the kind of effective leadership that was expected at the TWA’s central office and wished every success to them.
Every year on March 12, the association marks Tibetan Women’s Uprising Day to commemorate the Tibetan women’s massive demonstration against Chinese rule in Lhasa on that day in 1959, two days after the larger Tibetan National Uprising Movement. Last month the association simultaneously marked the 50th anniversary of the women’s uprising and the 25th founding anniversary since its reinstatement in India in 1984.
Tibet was forcefully occupied by China after Communist Chinese troops marched into Tibet in late 1949.
In 1959 the Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama fled Tibet following an aborted mass Tibetan uprising in Lhasa against Communist China’s continuing presence in Tibet.
TWA sturdily supports the exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s “middle-Way” policy that seeks “real and meaningful” autonomy instead of outright independence for Tibet.
