Swim Serpentine is a one-day open water swimming festival held at the beautiful Serpentine in Hyde Park, London – a venue made famous by the London 2012 Olympic swimming and triathlon events.

We are very fortunate to have a swimmer taking place in the event, raising funds for the Druk Padma Karpo School.

If you would like to sponsor her 1-mile swim, please donate here on the website donate page putting the reference as SWIM.

World Book Day - de-clutter your books to support us.

“Stories can change a life” Michael Morpurgo.
Celebrate the joy and power of books for World Book Day with #DeclutterAndDonate, at no cost to you.

UK supporters - turn your pre-loved:
• books
• CDs
• games (not PC games)
• DVDs
into cash donations for the Druk Padma Karpo School through the UK’s @WorldBookDayUK challenge.

Not in the UK - what is happening in your country? Perhaps there is something similar you can do to support the Druk Padma Karpo School, Ladakh?

Thanks to the @Ziffit and @VMGiving partnership, it’s easy, fast and free to clear your clutter in the UK and raise funds through Drukpa Trust.

Use the Ziffit app on your phone:
1. download the app
2. scan the barcode on your items
3. select Drukpa Trust at the checkout.

Or use the Ziffit-Drukpa Trust website link:
https://ziffit.com/en-gb/basket?charityResourceId=83192e6e-c1e6-4789-beb6-7cd38003b944

Please share this email with friends, family and colleagues and challenge them to #DeclutterAndDonate

To find out more about this UK initiative please go to:
https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/giving/worldofbooks/fundraisers/

Start a spring clear-out to support the Druk Padma Karpo School in Ladakh.

Happy decluttering for World Book Day.

Sean's story - the school's design team leader at Arup

 

Edwin Gruber’s cycle pilgrimage in support of the school, 5-30th September 2019

Sixty-nine-year-old retired teacher Edwin Gruber, a dedicated supporter of the Druk Padma Karpo School, set himself the challenge of pedalling 2,500 kilometres through France in 25 days as a sponsored event for the school and made a blog of his experiences and reflections.

Edwin set off from the Channel coast and followed ancient pilgrimage routes via the Atlantic Coast and the foothills of the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean. Edwin channelled his passion for education into purposeful action. Edwin invited people to sponsor him for each metre of ascent along his route, which was over 15,000 metres, or for the whole trip.

Edwin first visited the school in 2001, a few months before it opened, and was enthusiastic about its educational aims and philosophy. He took four groups of pupils from St Christopher School in Letchworth, where he taught, to Ladakh, on each occasion supporting the school educationally and financially, and he has organised fundraising events while working as a teacher. He was looking forward to the cycle challenge and hoped it would provide an opportunity to actively support the school again. Edwin said of his cycle pilgrimage “Like in life, the actual journey is more important than any final destination”.

Read Edwin's blog of experiences and reflections here

Please help Edwin reach his fundraising target by making a donation (with "Edwin" as the reference). Thank you so much.

Eco Showers for the school: We are building the first two of four eco shower buildings for the residential students. Click to see the design and we'd love to see more funds streaming in if you can help us a little!
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/…/displayCharityCampaignPag…

A fundraising luncheon for the Druk Padma Karpo School was held in Singapore on Friday 4th April 2015.  The school's founder His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa was present and the theme of the event was "Appreciating the Humanitarian Activities of His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa".

Please join us for a fun evening to raise funds for the school's Landscape & Gardens Project on Thursday 27th February at 7pm.

The event is called BRIGHT IDEAS BIG CHANGE and is organised by YTFN, the Youth Funding Network.

Three charitable projects pitch for your £10 entry fee; we want lots of people to pledge their entry fee towards the DWLS project! Plus there is live comedy and music to enjoy.
Venue: London School of Economics, Old Building, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE, London.

Tickets can be purchased on the door or in advance via http://www.ytfn.org/events/ 

https://www.facebook.com/events/786862087995972/

Reserve your free tickets here for Tuesday 26th February 2013 to hear a talk, in London, on Buddhist gardens by a world expert on the history of western as well as eastern gardens.

Tom Turner will be giving this free talk in London from 6.30 - 8.30pm. Tom visited the school in summer 2012 and is helping to create a landscape design for the DWLS campus.

Joining Tom will be Simon Drury-Brown, a landscape architect, who will talk about his visit to DWLS last year and his plans for the DWLS landscape programme in 2013.

The Sustainable Landscapes Research Group, School of Architecture, Design and Construction at the University of Greenwich is hosting the talks which are free to members of the public. The venue is:

King William 315 Lecture Theatre (LT KW315)
Old Royal Naval College
London, SE10 9LS

Tuesday, 26 February 2013 from 18:30 to 20:30 (GMT)

Tickets have to be reserved in advance through the link below. We look forward to seeing many of you there.

Click here to reserve your free tickets

Peaks Foundation returned to Ladakh in September this year with a trek in the Nubra Valley. After the "1 Peak 1 Week Ladakh Challenge" the team visited the school in their support of education for girls. The Challenge aims to provide funds for disadvantaged girls to attend the Druk White Lotus School in Shey

For trek details please click here

Modesto, based in London, has committed to run 108 km for the school. Please help by sponsoring Modesto's running effort via this link, http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/108run. Read Modesto's story here. Some time ago some friends from the Druk White Lotus School UK project office and from Live to Love asked me to do something special to celebrate 10 years of the Druk White Lotus School.

I thought about organising a party, but I have always been rubbish at organising parties. At the time I was developing a regular running routine and came up with the idea of running once for each one of the ten years been celebrated, 10 runs.

Initially, I thought about running 10 kilometres each time. But 100 kilometres did not sound quite right. 10.8 kilometres per run, a total of 108 kilometres, sounded more appropriate, more sensitive. 108 is a number with significance. Ladakhis, like the other Buddhist ethnic groups living on both sides of the Himalayas, often carry with them a rosary made out of 108 beads which they use to count the prayers they endlessly recite. Although prayers are recited 108 times and not 100 times, 100 turns of the rosary count as 10,000 recitations and not 10,800. I have always viewed this as, so to speak, going the extra mile. So I decided to run 108 kilometres, instead of 100 kilometres, between the end of September and the New Year to celebrate 10 Years of the Druk White Lotus School¸ and, at the same time, raise funds and awareness.

The Druk White Lotus School is both an ambitious construction and educational project, and a very special place in a very harsh environment; a place sometimes at the capricious mercy of the elements, last year’s (hopefully rare) flash flood and mudslide, and the endless flux of change that life is.

Having been captivated by the place and the people, especially the children, I have acquired a minimal experiential understanding of why it is so important to help educate the Ladakhi children: to preserve their traditions and give them a cultural identity, and, most importantly, to provide them with an education that could make the difference between living in poverty as adults or not.

If you are still sceptical or unmoved, try imagining yourself as a 9 year old child living in a place where:

• winter lasts 6 months and temperatures as low as -20C are reached regularly,
• there is no central heating, just a stove where cow dung is burned
• there are no toilets, just dry latrines or nature
• some children, those from a nomadic family, may live and grow up in a tent; nomadic children may spend the winter living in a tent made out of yak hair

You may think that living in these conditions is living in poverty. Having briefly experienced this way of life, I am unsure if I would describe it as poverty. Poverty is living in the slums of Delhi or Mumbai. By giving these children a good education, we are laying the foundations that  hopefully will keep them away from the slums and will help them preserve their heritage.

Please help and sponsor me on http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/108run , in return I will run 108 kilometres and I will  update the http://www.the108run.org  website regularly.

If you cannot sponsor me, please help by spreading the word.

The school has spent the last year recovering from the damage and loss from the August  2010 mudslide.

There are still replacement educational items needed following the internal damage to the classrooms and then the school has a number of priority needs in terms of materials, furnishings and equipment.

The School Needs US$ list gives a detailed breakdown of items required, also available in GB£, School Needs

A sponsored trek in Ladakh is being arranged by Peaks Foundation for a small group of women wishing to face a challenge in aid of the Druk White Lotus School. The Gulap Kangri Challenge, Ladakh, 10-19 September, 2011.

If this fantastic opportunity to walk in the Himalayan peaks is not for you, perhaps a friend of yours may be interested so do pass on the details, or perhaps you would prefer to sponsor one of the group and let them do the physical work!

For more details go to: http://www.peaksfoundation.org/our_adventures/1_peak_1_week_challenge/ladakh/

If you may be interested, please e-mail Peaks Foundation directly at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.