Kathleen Nolan, a pediatrician and executive director of Tibet Aid, visited Milton Academy on Thursday, January 31, to talk with students about the Tibetan people, both on the Tibetan Plateau and in the exile community. Her speech entitled "Tibet in 2008: What does the future hold?" focused on the relation between religious and political freedoms and the preservation of the indigenous Tibetan culture. Ms. Nolan has spent the last five years directing Tibet Aid's programs in India, Nepal and Tibet and has studied Zen and Tibetan Buddhism for almost 20 years. Her visit was sponsored by Milton's Tibet Club. Visit www.tibetaid.org for more information about the Tibet Aid organization.

The Tibet Club at Milton Academy

Each year thousands of Tibetans flee from their homeland to seek refuge from religious and political persecution, ethnic discrimination and cultural destruction. They risk their lives and imprisonment to make the perilous journey across the Himalayan Mountains into India, Nepal and Bhutan with few possessions other than the clothing on their backs. The Tibetan Government-in-exile, with its extremely limited economic resources, relies on assistance from organizations and groups from around the world to offer culturally appropriate resettlement services—as well as basic necessities—to those in exile.

In the 2006–2007 school year, the recently founded Tibet Club, a group focused on raising awareness in the Milton community about the need for humanitarian aid in the Tibetan region, raised well over $2,000 in support of this cause. Through a partnership with the Tibet Aid foundation, the Club will support two Tibetan children, Donduppal and Gyrme, as part of a five-year commitment that will give these children the basic necessities of everyday life as well as their first forms of genuine education. Apart from sponsoring these children, the Tibet Club has donated close to $500 in school supplies to an impoverished school in Tibet.