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"Hello friends, family, acquaintances and strangers,
I'd greatly appreciate it if you took a couple minutes to read this
email, I'll try to keep it short... ish.
Some of you may know so much about Tibet that you're sick of it all,
others may barely have heard a thing. To recap, China invaded a
sovereign Tibet in 1949 and since then have been practicing a brutal
regime of religious oppression, military occupation, forced
migrations, and cultural decimation. It is one of the longest ongoing
abuses of human rights in modern history. The current generation of
Tibetan children are growing up in a world where they have to pay
exorbitant school fees (more than the average annual Tibetan family
income) while Chinese migrants get the same education for free. Those
that do get to go are forced to learn in Chinese even though they are
rarely properly taught the language, and the school systems are
reminiscent of a "1984"-style re-education camp, where students are
taught to hate religion, hate tradition, and hate their parents'
culture, and instead to worship the "Chinese motherland".
The kids have it tough. But some have it tougher. With poor healthcare
and poverty still rampant, it is inevitable that a fair chunk of these
kids end up without parents or guardians to take care of them... you
know, orphans.
Some of you know by now of my plans for this summer... in a few words,
my friend Linden and I are riding our bicycles approximately 6000km
along some of the highest roads in the world, across Tibet.
During our trip we will be stopping by the capital city of Lhasa,
where we will be visiting an orphanage called Dickey Orphanage (an
unfortunate transliteration of the Chinese name, which is more like
"Diji"). Currently the orphanage houses 70-80 Tibetan kids, but
they're running out of room. Actually, they ran out of room ages ago,
so much so it's pretty standard to have several kids sharing one bed.
The good news is that they have recently secured a piece of land and
some of the building supplies needed to build a new orphanage big
enough to meet the current demand-- 250 orphans. But there is not
nearly enough money to complete the project now, despite generous
donations from Tibetan and Chinese businesses. This is where I'm
hoping some of you guys can help out for this incredibly worthy cause.
What I am proposing is this: I have a PayPal account set up (details
below). Any of you who are interested in helping out the current and
future kids that will call Dickey Orphanage their home can make a
payment to this account in any amount you want. After you have done
that you can email me letting me know you've made a donation and also
include a medium-to-high resolution photograph of yourself. I will
print out these photographs as 8x10 prints and take them along to the
orphanage this summer. The kids will then take turns holding your
photos, while I snap photos of them holding your photos (still with
me?). Upon my return (October) I can email you the images or mail a
print of the image so that you have a very personal reminder of the
difference you made in the lives of those kids and their future
siblings.
Ok, if you're still reading, here are the details... I will pay for
the printing costs of the photos I will take with me. Paypal takes a
small percentage of the money as a transfer fee, and I'll be bringing
the money to China as traveller's cheques which means there is a fee
at the bank when I go to cash them in Lhasa. My estimate is that about
95% of your donation will end up going to the orphanage directly.
Because of the cost of printing photos, the photo-souvenir will only
be available to those that donate $20 or more.
More information about the orphanage is at
http://www.dickeyorphanage.org. Several groups of volunteers have
visited in the past and I have been in contact with one of them as
well as the orphanage directly, so I'm confident it is legit. If
anything ends up being awry I will withhold the money and refund you
all. If you would prefer, there are bank account numbers on that site
if you want to make a donation directly (though it requires you pay
the $25 transfer fee).
My aim is not to guilt anyone into donating, just to provide an
opportunity to be a part of a cool experience where you can make a
difference. Don't do it because you know me, do it because it'll make
you feel good and you'll get a cool souvenir!
Of course feel free to pass along this email to anyone you know, along
with a personal message telling them how you know me... But I don't
particularly expect anyone who doesn't know me to trust me with
delivering their money safely. In any case, I'll be providing full
numbers on everything upon my return to anyone who is curious.
To make a donation, please visit this url:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=vanchuck%40gmail%2ecom&item_name=Dickey%20Orphanage%20Fund&no_shipping=0&no_note=1&tax=0¤cy_code=CAD&lc=CA&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF&charset=UTF%2d8
My PayPal account is listed as "Precept Design Solutions" with an
address of vanchuck@gmail.com.
You will be able to use your PayPal account if you have one, or simply
fill out your credit card information. (I don't get to see any of your
credit card information, PayPal just collects the money and then
transfers it to my account automatically). Don't forget to send me an
email with your photo afterwards! The photo can be anything fun or
serious, alone or with someone else.. whatever -- just keep it clean,
folks.
I will be leaving on this trip on June 29th, so I would like to
receive any payments and photos before June 25th if possible!
Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or
concerns. And no, I won't be bugging you again. For a while at least.
Thanks bunches,
Dave Achtemichuk
vanchuck@gmail.com
PS, my blog won't be going for this trip so if you want to be kept in
the loop about the progress, let me know and I'll add you to my email
list of who gets my updates"
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