One of the Tibet Fund's priorities is to help preserve Tibet's unique cultural and religious traditions. To this end, we provide grants to cultural and performing arts institutes, monasteries and nunneries for projects that help to document and preserve traditional arts, music and dances. We have helped in the construction of libraries and classrooms to provide formal schooling and spiritual education for nuns at the Jamyang Choling Institute for Himalayan Buddhist Women in Dharamsala as well as Thukje Choling Nunnery in Nepal.

The Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA)
TIPA is a respected professional artistic group that brings traditional performances to Tibetan communities and to many international countries. The Tibet Fund has provided funding to TIPA to videotape Tibetan operas, songs and other performances while the few original opera masters are still alive. The videos would also make it easier to show TIPA's works worldwide and in remote Tibetan settlements in India, Bhutan, and Nepal. In addition, we provided funding to the Kathmandu Lhamo Association (opera) for the production of a new Tibetan Lhamo Opera and for films on folk songs and stories.

Lama Mani - the Oral Story Telling Project
In Tibet the Lama Mani, or Oral Story Teller, traveled across the country telling stories and legends from Buddhist scriptures, entertaining and educating Tibetans about religion and the life of the Buddha. It was discovered that only one Lama Mani remained in exile, and the Tibet Fund provided funding for this Lama Mani to teach this traditional art of story telling to others so this tradition would not die. In order to further preserve this tradition, we are raising funds to train more Lama Manis and to record traditional stories and legends in audio and video form to ensure that the stories and songs will not be lost.

Helping the Tibetan Children Study Tibetan
Tibetan children who grow up in exile are at risk of not being able to speak and read Tibetan. To prevent this, the Tibet Fund provided Tibetan textbooks to Sunday Tibetan language classes established by some of the Tibetan Associations in North America.

Preservation of Rare and Important Archives
The Oral History Department at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA) in Dharamsala is one of a very few Tibetan oral history programs in the world. In operation since 1981, LTWA has holdings of more than 20,000 hours of audiotape and 30,000 pages of transcriptions of personal interviews, Tibetan cultural and Buddhist religious activities and works of His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. In order to preserve this vast store of knowledge for future generations, The Tibet Fund helped the LTWA to transfer this treasure trove onto the latest digital format. The Tibet Fund also provided special funding for the Tibet House in New Delhi to digitally photograph its paintings and ritual objects in its museum for a catalog of its collection. See the Photo Gallery for more images of our Arts and Culture projects.