My name is Junu Dimdung. I am a proud graduate of Shree Mangal Dvip Boarding School (SMD) in Nepal and Shawnigan Lake School in BC, Canada. Unlike many children at SMD who come from the high Himalayas in northern Nepal, I am from a destitute village named Mankawnpur Gadhi in the southern part of Nepal, where there was no electricity, …
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Accepting over 40 new kids
SMD School students finished their last day of the 2018 – 2019 school year on April 5th. We had the best exam results this year for years. Every year, after finishing the “Iron Gate” exams, our Class 10 kids go on pilgrimage to the Buddha’s birthplace, Lumbini. Their escort and teacher was our nyerpa (monk manager) Tashi Gyatso. The same …
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Richard climbs Everest for SMD
Richard Dale, a former host dad of one of our alums in Switzerland, is coming back to Nepal end of March to join an expedition to climb Mt. Everest. This climb will be his second attempt to summit the final of the “7 summits”. He has spent the last eight years training and travelling to all seven continents of the …
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Nutritionists at SMD
Holistic nutritionists, Maria and Arantza from Mexico City, came to SMD in September to share their knowledge about nutrition and meal planning. They became part of our family the moment they landed. Following is a summary of their experience: Last September, we had the extraordinary opportunity to teach holistic nutrition for four weeks at SMD School for Himalayan Children in …
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Tribute to a Mentor
Harry Pigot first visited SMD School when he was studying at Neuchatel Junior College, a Canadian school in Switzerland. At the time, he said he’d come back when he finished an engineering degree. He finished the degree at UBC and then spent a year mentoring SMD students, co-founding Himalayan Makers’ Guild (HMG) and Code Club with Tashi Choeden Lama B716. …
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NASA Astronaut visits SMD
Our new school year is off to a great start and we’ve been busy—we’ve had many visitors, club and sports activities, a fire puja, an election, Environment Day, Hostel Night, and more. One of the key highlights was the visit and presentation by American engineer and former NASA astronaut, Sandra Hall Magnus. The kids were riveted by her talk. She …
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SMD School Spring Update
This time of year is always bustling with energy at SMD School, and it has been eventful over the past couple of months, to say the least! Here are a few highlights of our activities: We held our final exams for the year from March 22 to 30, followed by results day on April 5 and a short two-week holiday …
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Tsering Namgyal reflects on SMD
“I recently attended a conference on sustainability in Nepal. Once the conference had ended, the networking activities had come to a grinding halt, and reports on Nepalese economics were filed, I decided to visit a school for Himalayan children. Shree Mangal Dvip (SMD) boarding school lies just a stone’s throw from Boudhanath Stupa, a revered Tibetan Buddhist spiritual site in Nepal’s …
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SMD Health Assistants Save Lives
Pran Maya Khadki comes from a small village called Namo Buddha, where our founder, Thrangu Rinpoche established Thrangu Tashi Yangtse Monastery. This is also where SMD Branch School for monks is. After she finished Class 10, Pran Maya took the three-year Health Assistants (paramedic) training. When the earthquakes hit in 2015, Lama Sangay, one of our monks in Malaysia raised …
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SMD Sports Day Celebrations
Our annual SMD Sports Day is always a much anticipated and exciting event for all the students, faculty and staff at SMD. This year’s event was held on January 31 and organized by Tenzin Loden with assistance from SMD senior students and teachers. The event opened with a marching parade by the school houses and the school band. It also …
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30 years of free education
On November 20th, SMD School held a grand celebration to commemorate 30 years of free education for Himalayan Children in the presence of the founder, the Very Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, the Khenpos and Lamas of Thrangu Monastery, and many SMD alumni. Some of them shared their life journey and expressed with gratitude the important role that the free education provided …
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Tashi Dolma Helps Nubri Villages
Tashi Dolma Lama is one of our SMD alumna who won a scholarship to finish her high-school diploma in Canada at Bishop Strachan School in Toronto, Ontario in 2011, after which she went on to complete her Bachelor of Arts & Sciences Degree at Quest University in Squamish, BC, Canada earlier this year. She writes to us about her recent …