This Tibetan’s face and story belonged in a National Geographic
feature. But here she was in silent exile,
doing all she could to tell us about her community’s struggle…
 |
| As far as study abroad programs go, the TEXT Program is unique. |
Tibetans
in Exile Today: India is an oral history project designed to record the stories of
Tibetans currently living in refugee settlements in India. Our group focused on Tibetans who left their
country in 1959 for exile, but still have rich memories of traditional Tibetan
culture.
 |
| Abroad, we Razorbacks experienced India through the lenses of humanitarians, rather than those of a student, and our most precious lessons were learned in the service of an oppressed people, rather than in the classroom. |
Lessons on compassion,
geopolitics, cultural preservation, and the human condition were woven and
packaged together as we met one fascinating person after another. (I did not know it at the time, but this trip
was the foundation for my honors thesis, “Tibet
& China: Autonomy, Independence, and Tibetan-Chinese Relations.”) We
recorded the stories of these amazing people, in hope that the future will not be
deaf and blind to the Tibetan story.
In the exiled Tibetan communities we experienced a people of hope in
a place where hopelessness would have made more sense. These people and their hope impacted my team
and me profoundly; their survival in exile in the face of unmoving obstacles is
inspiring. There was no better way to
love these people than to listen to their stories, and there was no better way
to learn about myself than to step with compassion into their lives.
The Tibetans in Exile Today
program is a life-changing educational experience. TEXT deeply impacts the worldviews of
participating university students, and it deeply impacts the Tibetan
communities that it exists to serve.
--Bobby Howard, Tibetans in Exile Today: India Summer 2011 Participant
