Activity

This is an initiative under Chokgyur Lingpa Foundation, as part of our Foundation’s ongoing efforts to enable communities to access affordable, effective healthcare, improving their overall standard of living. This project is a brainchild of Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche, and aims to provide training in Tibetan medicine to interested members of the ordained sangha as well as villagers from remote areas in Nepal who do not have access to quality healthcare treatment. Imagine what it is like being sick and having no doctors around, and the feeling of loneliness and hopelessness that one will feel at that time. For many villages in Nepal, that is the reality that they have to face daily, as the nearest healthpost may be days away.

After undergoing this training, these Tibetan doctors will then go on to serve the people at their respective monasteries and villagers, the wider community or at the Vajravarahi Healthcare Clinic in Chapagaon, thus providing self-sustaining, continuing healthcare treatment to their respective communities.

For the first batch of students, we have a total of seven volunteers. Four are monks from Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling Monastery, our main monastery, and our branch monastery in Chapagaon (see photo above). Three more volunteers are from the villages in the Nubri region, in the northern part of Nepal on the border with Tibet. The villages in this region are isolated with no proper roads, and can only be accessed on foot. As such, the villagers there do not have proper access to quality healthcare treatment.

Sponsoring this program allows you to support up to nine students or more at one go, that would mean an equivalent of giving a scholarship for nine students. That is just the direct benefit. Indirectly, your contribution will be able to help thousands, when the doctors graduate and go on to serve the sick and needy in the Nepal.

USD 110 would sponsor one student for a month, including food, accommodation, educational supplies and teacher's salary.

If you would like to contribute to our program or for more information, please email gem.gan@cglf.org.

On 11th November 2008 Vajra Varahi Healthcare opened it's headquarters and clinic in Chapagaon in the Kathmandu Valley. Built with the support of students it is staffed by paid Nepali staff and overseas volunteers.

Our clinic in Chapagaon co-ordinates delivery of effective low cost and free healthcare to those who need it most.

Our vision is “making accessible and effective healthcare, a reality for everyone”. We aim to put this into practice through sustainable projects and sharing thoroughly researched information about treatments of common ailments from different medical traditions.

Twelve locally based and paid staff co-ordinate our work:

• Three Tibetan, Homoeopathic and Ayurvedic doctors
• Tibetan practitioners assistant
• Two senior interpreter managers
• Four Nepali / Newari / Tibetan / English interpreters
• Two support staff

We work alongside volunteer practitioners and supporters from all over the world who treat patients using acupuncture and TCM, massage and sacro-cranial therapies and homoeopathy: overseas and local volunteers organise and staff our annual dental / medical camps held in a different part of Nepal every year.

OUR ORGANISATIONAL VALUES

• ‘Compassion in action’ – improving the health of all people worldwide in a measurable way through the sharing of healthcare skills and information.

• Consultation and sharing - with patients, practitioners and all our stakeholders.

• Honesty and openness - in all our activities in and out of the clinic.

• Long term sustainability – aiming to make redundant the need for overseas volunteers and funding by training local practitioners and finding means to generate income locally, while adding to the local economy.

WHAT MAKES VAJRA VARAHI HEALTHCARE SPECIAL?

• We are unique in training our Nepali / Newari / English interpreters, to international standards to support English speaking practitioners.This means that our patients and doctors can communicate fully and accurately with each other. Using properly trained interpreters, practitioners have the time and skilled help that enables them to share knowledge with patients about their illnesses and how to use diet and exercise to take control of their own health.

• We are unique in offering such a range of medical traditions under one roof. Practitioners are able to refer patients to each other, delivering  the best mix of care to each patient and improving their own understanding of healthcare.

• Our research aims are unique in that we will be able to compare the effectiveness not just of a particular treatment tradition – Tibetan, Ayurvedic, Chinese, Homoeopathic and Western medicines – but to compare them one against the other.

• Our skill sharing is unique -we have trained twelve interpreters since we opened and two are learning acupuncture while they work, and four have studied and now deliver theraputic massage.
  

How can I help?

We depend on donations and grants to run our clinics and health camps. Volunteer practitioners deliver much of our clinic time. Please consider making a tax-deductable donation to our work or sharing with us your time and skills at the clinic.

To find out more about the clinic and to volunteer, visit the clinic website.

If you would like to donate money online to the Vajra Varahi Clinic, please do using our secured PayPal online payment system.

You can make a donation of US$30 a month, US$50 a month, US$100 a month. or a general donation of any amount.