Dear sponsor,

We kindly request your help for sick nuns of Kopan Nunnery in Nepal. As you may know, Tara Foundation focuses on helping refugee Tibetan nuns and monks and their monasteries. Especially the monks of the Gaden Jangtse Tsawa Khangsten Monastery in South India and the nuns of Kopan Nunnery in Kathmandu. We support them by means of fundraising for livelihood and healthcare, among other things.

At the moment we do have more than 100 sponsorships. Our monks and nuns are sponsored by people all over Europe. Thanks to our sponsors we have been able to to do a lot for the monks in recent years, for example the Lamadance Tour in Spain.

Kopan Nunnery
Now the nuns are in need of our help. The Kopan Nunnery is severely overcrowded, not only by the refugees coming in from Tibet, but also by many nuns from Nepal and India who want to study to be later of service to the community. The living conditions in the monastery are very hard. Due to bad circumstances many nuns are sick. They often suffer from severe gastrointestinal problems, this makes that they cannot eat the monastery food. This situation causes enormous problems, not only to the nuns but also to the Nunnery. Up to now, the Nunnery tried to solve this problem by requesting for sponsors for the sick nuns, to pay for special food they need. But only a small number of nuns got a sponsor.

Helicobacter pylori
Last month, when I visited the Nunnery, I was shocked by the problems and also about the cases of gastric cancer in the monastery in the last years. I heard that there was a link with infection by Helicobacter pylori. This bacterium causes serious infections and damage to the stomach lining, which can not heal in a natural way. It can lead to ulcers and in some cases even to stomach cancer. When people live in poor sanitary conditions in development countries and in crowded places like monasteries, it is possible that 90% of the individuals get infected with this bacterium. In consultation with the monastery, the Tara Foundation has chosen to tackle the problem at the roots. Rather than to seek sponsors for special food for the sick nuns, we want to get as many nuns as possible treated.

Treatment
Treatment is possible with a special cocktail of antibiotics. First of all sick nuns get a blood test to see if they are infected with H. pylori. When this is the case, they will be given antibiotics, so they can fully recover. According to research, probably one will not catch the Helicobacter pylori ever again after treatment. So treatment means not only recovery but also prevention. The total costs for examination and treatment are 40 euro a nun.

With help of the Tara Foundation the first 10 nuns have received a medical examination and three of them were infected. They are receiving treatment now. We would like to have a check-up and treatment for the nuns before serious stomach ulcers or even stomach cancer is caused. In this way we prevent suffering and problems for women who have and ask for so little in life. After the nuns are fully recovered they can devote themselves again to their studies.

Support
We kindly ask your support for this new project. Any contribution is welcome, once or periodically. Please mention: “Sick nuns”.
Within Europe you can make your donation without extra costs by SEPA Transfer.
You have to mention the IBAN and BIC codes. The full details are:

Tara Stichting, De Maat 23, 7707RM Balkbrug, The Netherlands
IBAN: NL74ABNA0522363822
BIC: ABNANL2A
Name of the Bank: ABNAMRO

Thank you for your support, on behalf of Tara Foundation!

Sincerely,

Thupten Dolkar
Chairman Tara Foundation