40 Years of ROKPA Come and join us! No. 1 / March 2020 / Volume 40 Editorial Dear ROKPA friends, I was once an actress with little more than a wish to help this Invitation to the Anniversary-Event on the 25th June, 2020 one child. Today, 40 years later, I look around me, and besides We would be delighted to celebrate ROKPA's 40th Birthday with thousands of people who have a better life thanks to ROKPA, I you. Would you like to join? Details can be found in the see offices, computers, photos, videos, project reports, the accompanying letter. ROKPA Times, the ROKPA Facebook page and so many other things which I could not have even imagined back then. Above all else, however, I see people who commit to ROKPA and who all share the same wish: to help that one child. And for this I am simply grateful. Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche, my father and I laid the foundations CONTENTS for the ROKPA path on March 27, 1980, the date on which EDITORIAL 2 ROKPA was officially founded in Zürich. Since then, countless LOOKING BACK 3 people from all over the world have joined us: benefactors, employees, volunteers, board members, friends and ambassa- THE FOUNDERS 4 – 5 dors. Hundreds of our supporters made a commitment to ABOUT ROKPA 6 – 7 ROKPA in the past, or continue to do so today. In the mean- EDUCATION 8 time, they have become friends who carry and pass on the PROJECTS 9 – 12 ROKPA values. DO YOU REMEMBER? 13 ROKPA's story cannot be summarized in a single ROKPA Times or even in ten editions, because it is shaped by a collection of THE JOURNEY CONTINUES 14 large and small, happy and sad stories and moments, as well as LOOKING AHEAD 15 deeply-felt emotions. What you hold in your hand is a small but BACK COVER 16 important part of the whole. Both I and the entire ROKPA team would like to sincerely thank ROKPA INTERNATIONAL Executive Board you for your donations, your loyalty and your solidarity. I can’t Lea Wyler (Co-Founder and President) / imagine what we would be without YOU! We would be de- Peter Fanconi (Vice President) / Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche / lighted if you continue on this path with us. Come with us and Dorje Tarap / Gelong Thubten / Andreas Vollenweider let’s write the story of the next decade together! Imprint Editorial team: Andrea Hefti / Corinna Biasiutti / Evelyne Plüss / Lea Wyler Graphic design: Renée Reust / Staša Lampret Enjoy the read. Copy editing: Claire Twigger Cover picture: © Lea Wyler Print run: 7,300 copies (German edition) Yours, Lea Wyler Printed on recycled paper manufactured in Co-Founder and President of ROKPA INTERNATIONAL Photo: © David Lasnet accordance with the rules of “The Blue Angel”. LOOKing BACK Beginnings A bed can be found in times of need. Inside a classroom. Lending a helping hand: the first ROKPA children. Kathmandu, Nepal (1990) Yushu, Tibet (1994) Kathmandu, Nepal (around 1990) Grinding barley. A Tibetan nomadic family. On the ground, without infrastructure: Tibet (around 1990) (1996) food distribution in the early days before the soup kitchen. Nepal (around 1990) Photos: ROKPA INTERNATIONAL © Lea Wyler, In action on site. Boxes used as wardrobes: a dormitory Dr. Akong Rinpoche in Tibet. Kathmandu, Nepal (around 1990) in an orphanage. Tibet (around 1990) (2005) 3 THE FOUNDERS Photo: © Lea Wyler IN LOVING MEMORY Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche The ROKPA Co-founder and President (1939 - 2013) dedicated survivors. Touched by these terrible events, Akong Rinpoche his whole life to those suffering from poverty and illness. Due to decided to help people suffering from poverty, illness, fear and the Tibetan uprising in China, he was forced to flee to India with a emotional distress. In 1967 together with Chögyam Trungpa group of 300 or so other Tibetans in 1959. Their escape lasted Rinpoche, he founded the first Tibetan Buddhist center in ten months and was shaped by hunger, great hardship and mortal Scotland. danger. The group soon had nothing to eat and in their plight He was involved in ROKPA projects for more than 30 years – resorted to cooking the leather of their shoes to at least find some especially in the Tibetan areas of China, but also in Nepal and nourishment. Out of the group of 300 people, there were only 13 Africa. Who and what Akong Rinpoche was like can be best described by his own words: You are not helpless if you help others. Above all learn to be Serve your family, serve compassionate because your enemies - knowledge is useless simply serve everyone. Don’t think: I am without compassion! Don't care what others “helping” people. think of you. Just think Think: I am "serving" people. of one thing: to help, to serve The best way to help and don't expect anything from Education is the key to yourself is lose yourself the other! inner freedom. in the help for others. 4 THE FOUNDERS IN LOVING MEMORY Dr. Veit Wyler Dr. Veit Wyler (1908 - 2002) was one of My father held education and learning in families. And at the age of 94 – when he the three Co-founders of ROKPA and one very high regard throughout his life. For wasn’t interested in much else – the old of the most famous Jewish personalities as long as he had influence over his fire of learning glowed in him when he in Switzerland. Thanks to his pro- daughters, he urged us not to spend a heard that the first Tibetan school class nounced sense of justice, coupled with day without learning, learning new we had founded was now ready for his profession as a lawyer, he repeatedly things, not stagnating – keeping the university. "How will you finance this?", rescued and helped Jewish refugees mind active. "Stand on your own two he asked me. And then – without telling during the Second World War. He feet" was one of his mottos. When I me – he ordered a larger amount to be worked hard for the inclusion and founded ROKPA with Dr. Akong Tulku transferred from his account to ROKPA. acceptance of persecuted people. To his Rinpoche and my father in March 1980, He was ROKPA’s greatest benefactor daughter Lea, he said: "In a place where he was initially sceptical. (True to form – and still is, since I have never had to no one is human, you try to be human." though, it didn’t stop him helping us!) draw a wage over the years (except for After his death, his daughter and Akong Over the years, that scepticism faded expenses). Rinpoche opened the "Veit Wyler away and his eyes would light up when I Now he is no longer here and I have to Education Fund", which still exists today. told him about the establishment of a stand on my own two feet with all the new ROKPA school and the basic ROKPA children. So it stands to reason education of orphans supported by that I am establishing this fund in his Lea Wyler wrote at the time: ROKPA or of children from the poorest honor today. AN INTERVIEW Do you have a hidden “superpower” that me a lot. Secondly, I was the only Jew in helped you? my class. Other schoolchildren persecuted No, definitely no superpower! But I had and insulted me because of this, passed and continue to have exceptional role me by on the way home from school and Lea Wyler models: Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche, who threw stones at me. Thirdly, I am an provided help to anyone who asked him actress. Not the norm either. And so I was and whose life was determined by the actually a lifelong outsider and have always Lea Wyler founded ROKPA 40 years well-being of others. And then my parents, been swimming against the current. I ago, together with Dr. Akong Tulku who taught me by example that I was not always thought that was good because it Rinpoche and her father. in the world only for myself. On every birth- gave me a lot of surprises. And all these day, from the age of three, we children had events and experiences have made me What has driven you during the past 40 to forgo a gift. The money was donated to stronger. years? an aid organization (at that time, it was Have you ever thought of going back to The will to help as many people in the 30-50 % of all gifts). We thought that was acting? world as possible. Because if you were normal and the fact that I never behaved Never. The moment I was first involved lucky enough to have been born in safe by the book myself also arguably strengthe- in really helping someone was a defining Switzerland and also to have had wonder- ned me. moment for me. Doing this is not a ful parents and enough to eat, then it is How were you different? profession for me, but a calling. The not only your duty to help, but also an Firstly, my mother was 42 when I was children need a mother and so I became honor to do something for others. born. Her life experience, love and wisdom one. have enriched me enormously and taught 5 ABOUT ROKPA We care about helping ROKPA’s vision In the beginning, it was not about founding an aid organization, it was simply a desire to help people. Forty years ago, Dr. Akong Tulku Rinpoche, Lea Wyler and Dr. Veit Wyler laid the foundations for ROKPA. Everyone who has accompanied us on this path since then carries this motivation and the values of ROKPA within them, as well as the conviction that greatness can come out of small things.