Deboche Nunnery Restoration Project

Summary of Project:

This project involves restoring the Pema Choling Buddhist women’s convent, also known as the Deboche Convent. The nunnery was built in 1928 and has had little or no maintenance since. As a result, the building is starting to fall down, and is constantly leaking. Many tourists walk past the building and never consider it. Perhaps you might like to get involved.

Total Funding Goal:

$5,000 USD

For nunnery restoration and repairs

How You Can Help:

• $20 towards restoration of building interior & exterior
• $40 towards restoration of building interior & exterior
• $75 towards restoration of building interior & exterior
• $100 towards restoration of building interior & exterior

To pay via check, make payable to:
The Mountain Fund
139 Madison, NE
Albuquerque, NM 87108
USA

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Why This Project Matters:

There are twenty nuns, including four elderly, eight from the Solukhumbu and eight from Tibet. They also help nuns from all over Nepal, who come to visit, stay and learn different prayers and ceremonies in a kind of religious exchange programme. The nuns from Tibet are in a very different circumstance and many have run for their lives across the high mountain passes, where some nuns will have been shot by soldiers while fleeing.

Located in a forest inside Sagarmatha National Park, where Mt. Everest stands, the Pema Choling convent desperately needs a new roof. It looks as if it has needed a new roof for quite some time. The nuns at the Deboche Nunnery lead a simple life. The convent has no windows so its extremely dark and the roof is very low. Its quite a depressing, cold and dark building, and there is nothing inspiring about it.

More Information About This Project:

• The Deboche Convent is also known as the Deboche Nunnery, Debouche Convent or Debouche Monastery.
• The convent is the “sister-monastery” to the famous Thyangboche monastery on top of the hill between beautiful Deboche and Namche, along the Everest basecamp trek.
• The men who live in the monastery on top of the hill have brand new buildings with fancy paintings and solid walls and intact roofs, while the women live at the bottom of the slope in very simple (and leaky) circumstances.
• This project is led by Marcia Macdonald and is sponsored by The Mount Everest Foundation for Sustainable Development in Nepal and Tibet. Click HERE to see more project updates and to read a personal letter from Marcia.

The Mount Everest Foundation for Sustainable Development in Nepal and Tibet exists to help poor farmers to help themslves. The Deboche Nunnery Project is one example of how the Foundation seeks to sustain the traditions and culture around Mount Everest by supporting these Nuns to help themselves and preserve their precious and endangered culture. These people live in Nepal and Tibet near Everest, but far from any city where life is very primitive, making Nepal the 12th poorest country in the world and the poorest country in all Asia. The foundation builds schools and hospitals and protects cultural institutions like buddhist temples and fragile environments.

Please visit their website at www.mounteverestfoundation.org for more information.