See It: The Community being helped

During the Summer of 2007, a friend (21 years old) and myself (22 years old) traveled to Tibet together to teach english at an orphanage. during our stay, we saw how the school utilized a very sanitary mini-landfill, and kept their water source and waste systems very well separated. The nearest town from the orphanage (maybe 4 miles) had a much more devastating situation. Trash clogged the waterways, there was no waste removal systems or landfills. The very holy mountain the town was at the base of was also littered with trash, even from the monks! basically what had happened (as it was explained to us a local - facts not verified) was there had been a recent surge of western products, where there had been none before. All trash was once disposable, but now solid waste (what we refer to as trash or garbage) has become
an enormous problem, and is only getting worse. My friend and I have been discussing ways we can return and help the area, because it is suffering in many ways. We decided that the management of solid waste within the community would be the least political (aka most feasible), and most helpful thing we could provide to the environmentally fragile town. Also, as Tibet is considered the roof of the world, the water runs through these polluted areas down to other cities, thus they receive contaminated water as well.

The project would be initially implemented in the town mentioned above for two main reasons: 1 - We have connections in the area; we have knowledge of the surroundings, and we have witnessed the problem first hand as well as a model for a functional solution (the orphanage 4 miles down the road). 2 - travelers stay for free at the orphanage we worked at, so long as they aide the orphanage in some way. Those involved in the project would have negligible living costs (free food and shelter) if only 40 minutes a day was devoted to teaching the orphans english (or other subjects).

This undertaking will be essentially be a pilot project, and if successful, we will attempt to aid other struggling towns throughout Tibet.

This project is still in a brainstorming phase - ANY help, suggestions, criticisms, similar projects, etc. are very much appreciated. Fund raising has not started yet, but it will be essential to our project. Help or support offered in anyway are welcome

You say "Free Tibet?"
We say that it's a process, the first step being stability.