From Tamar Tepper

A Precious Human Life
On Thursday July 16, 2009, I arrived in Mumbai, India where I boarded a second plane heading to New Delhi. Alongside a group of nine other volunteers and two trip leaders, I was excited to embark on a journey I knew would be eye-opening and shake me to the core. Upon learning of my desire to travel to India, many friends, family, and colleagues advised me to come prepared. Each informed me that I must be open minded and quickly learn to adjust to the mentality and reality of the locals. Arriving in India I quickly realized that this would be an experience that I could never truly prepare myself for. How could I have really known about the smell, the poverty, the dirt, the unique dress, the rich culture, and the fiery food without ever having traveled here?

I came to India to challenge myself and step out of my comfort zone. To do something fresh and extraordinary before commencing my master's degree. I wanted to immerse myself in a new culture and a new setting. I came to question and reassess values and to learn about myself. In living among the Tibetan people of Dharamsala, volunteering to better the community, and through meeting talented individuals with similar values and ambitions, India has and continues to shape who I am and where I am heading, and show me more about what kind of person I am and wish to be. To me, this trip is about personal growth and challenge, about allowing myself to wander into different situations, and gain another perspective on life.

My volunteering experience here at The Tibetan Women's Association (TWA) has been phenomenal. TWA is a well organized and established group with a strong committee of dedicated employees. Its main objectives include: raising awareness of the situation inside Tibet, calling on international pressure to improve conditions for all Tibetans, investigating and taking action against human rights violations committed against women in Tibet, ensuring Tibetan women have access to educational information about health care and child care and supporting the needy and disadvantaged within the community financially through sponsorship programs. My role is to help write proposals for grant applications, research issues pertaining to several United Nations Conventions on refugees and women, and teach English to recently arrived Tibetan women learning how to sew traditional Tibetan clothing so that they may one day open their own businesses. Volunteering with such an organization has taught me much about the compassion and sense of solidarity that flourishes within the Tibetan community. It has shown me that while I have never been stateless, grown up in the hilltops of India or Tibet, or known much about the Buddhist belief - and while my Western upbringing has led me to subscribe to a different set of values and perception on life - all people believe in the same core values. Love and kindness are universal.

Volunteering in Dharamsala, India is to volunteer with those who truly need your help most. It is to volunteer with individuals, whether young or old, who have so much to share with you and give to this world. Their stories of their homeland, Tibet, so fresh in their minds and hearts, are moving and saddening. Yet their passion and excitement for their people and their culture, and undying yearning to return to this land, inspiring. Coming here as a volunteer means to demonstrate to these stateless people, many of whom have not been granted refugee status by India, that the world cares. It is to illustrate to each one that we have not forgotten them and want to know about their exceptional community and troubled past. It shows them that we care and will step up to help.

Everywhere here there are scrolls, wall hangings, and post cards imprinted with a hugely powerful passage written by His Holiness the 14th Dali Lama. In this passage, he declares that each one of us has been granted a Precious Human Life and that we must not waste this life. The Dali Lama goes on to say that we are so fortunate to be alive, to be able to develop ourselves, and to expand our hearts through acts of kindness.

Just over two weeks after I first arrived in India, I still cannot fully comprehend how much I have gained during my time here. I came to India to give to and help a community, yet what I've gained in return is so much more. With each passing day I learn. I touch, see, smell, taste, and meet new people and travel to new places. And I know that I am pursuing a precious path. I greet each day as a new awakening and I know that the day will be filled with an exciting new adventure and lesson that I cannot even imagine. Whether a stroll down to a holy Temple, a nearby town, a beautiful waterfall, or a crowded market, the experience will be different, and something will be learned.

We are so fortunate to have a Precious Human Life. Use it wisely.

- Tamar Tepper