Jerry Zadow
Jerry Zadow (right) with student Pema
Our Jhamtse Story
I believe we met Lobsang in 2001. My wife, the wonderful Gaby, saw an insert in our local newspaper that a Tibetan monk would be teaching Buddhist philosophy at the Unitarian church. We showed up. He was a gifted teacher, able to connect the arcane ancient wisdom to our everyday lives. Wonderful. He became our teacher.
Life here was not easy for him, he was still trying to understand American culture – we had so much and never enough - so he spent a lot of time with us, in our family. Became part of our family, a gift we all treasure. But he is capable of giving that same gift to all around him; you see, this was not about us.
It must have been about 2004 or 2005 when we began to learn about his concept of starting a home and community for children from difficult backgrounds in the region where he grew up, in Arunachal Pradesh, India. Lobsang, now Gen la, wanted to provide family, home and village such that they would not have to experience his very difficult childhood. Not sure that we truly understood the depth of his vision, but we were in. We established a US nonprofit, first reaching out to those he knew and taught in the western suburbs of Boston, and the journey was on.
The vision of Jhamtse Gatsal Childrens’ Community firmed, formed, grew. Our comprehension of this truly wondrous experiment in how love and compassion could light up young lives, opening vistas of opportunity that could not have been dreamed of as orphans in their villages. How early childhood poverty and trauma become, in this Community that must be experienced to fully grasp, the means for children to find purpose to strongly wish to give back. To make their world better.
Jhamtse Gatsal is a model for the region and for the wider world. We who have become part of the journey have become convinced that education is so much more than teachers, school, curriculum, grades. Have become convinced that we are not just vessels into which “knowledge” can be forced, as feed for geese is in the Alsace and Perigord.
Love and compassion is key, focus on the needs of the individual child will enable her to blossom. We all know this, that our model of “education” cannot be simply going to a school with a fixed curriculum, and running as on an assembly line to sequential stations in life. educational pioneers keep rediscovering that children, the human mind, are far more complex than passive vessels; that we can all benefit hugely from the complex fabric of community, family, of hands-on work. Of practical education with purpose. The Jhamtse Gatsal model is brilliant for lighting up these young lives with purpose, with expanded opportunities to instill passion to this job of life.
Thank you, Gen la.
Gaby and Jerry
