Gaden Relief
637 Christie St M6G 3E6 Toronto, ON, Canada

Tommorrow is Giving Tuesday please consider giving even a small amount of relief to the Nuns of Zanskar. #GivingTuesday Gaden Relief Projects has been helping Buddhist nuns in Zanskar, India since 1991. We are a small volunteer-based NGO with low operating costs; over 95% of funds reach the poor and needy directly. The Zanskar Nunnery Project: We support 9 nunneries spread across 7000 sq. km of the most isolated of all Himalayan valleys, the Zanskar Valley. This is a sem...i-desert valley with an elevation of 3500 metres above sea level and is one of the coldest inhabited places in the world. It is connected to rest of India only by a single lane road in deplorable condition and due to extreme weather is only open 7 months of the year. The Zanskar Valley’s isolation applies to technology as well. For better and for worse, cellular reception is unreliable and internet connection remains unavailable. The harsh climate, remote topography and limited amenities prove difficult for many to know or see the nun’s plight first hand. Most critical areas of need: food, clothing, healthcare, education, adequate housing-heat, water, lighting Transportation: $5 CAD pays for travel to local health clinic Food: $20 CAD provides food for a single nun for ONE MONTH Heat: $50 CAD pays for a small smokeless stove Clothing: $100 CAD provides clothing, shoes and personal hygiene products for a single nun for ONE YEAR Main Areas of Need: Infrastructure and Daily Needs: Some Nunneries can access electricity for only a few hours a day, and are equipped with water delivery and storage system, and a greenhouse. Other Nunneries have only the bare minimum for their daily living; a basic residential cell with no communal kitchen (e.g. water is fetched from the ice in winter). Nuns of Manda, Rizhing, and Bya are living in particularly dire conditions; they suffer from a lack of food and heat sources as well as a shortage of practical goods such as shoes and clothing. Your donation could provide essentials for daily life: solar panels and lanterns water storage and delivery system smokeless stoves blankets, mattresses, carpets and tables first-aid items plastic for greenhouses tree seedlings and seeds school supplies We feel so much love from giving, and we hope you will join us in giving cheerfully and freely. Your donation will go directly into the hands of the Zanskar Nuns, impacting their lives in a significant way. https://www.gofundme.com/f/serving-hope

Gaden Relief supporst 9 nunneries spread across 7000 sq. km of the most isolated of all Himalayan valleys, the Zanskar Valley. This is a semi-desert valley with an elevation of 3500 metres above sea level and is one of the coldest inhabited places in the world. It is connected to rest of India only by a single lane road in deplorable condition and due to extreme weather is only open 7 months of the year. The Zanskar Valley’s isolation applies to technology as well. For better and for worse, cellular reception is unreliable and internet connection remains unavailable. The harsh climate, remote topography and limited amenities prove difficult for many to know or see the nun’s plight first hand.

Feature from Buddha Weekly, a Gaden Relief project: "As you might expect of 185 devoted Buddhist nuns, they ask for very little, but here in Zanskar Valley one of the most isolated valleys in the Himalayas many live without heat, water and electricity. Some of the nuns are children, as young as four years old and the oldest nun is 88. They are not quite forgotten, but they cope with being cut off from the rest of India; a single lane road, open only 7 months a year, ...connects this frigid valley at 3500 meters above sea level with the rest of India. A rugged vehicle is needed to traverse the so-called road. For all of these reasons and the severe poverty in the region the nuns of Zanskar are almost forgotten. Here, money is scarce, but it pays for a lot. 20 dollars feeds a nun for one entire month. $5 gives the nuns transportation to the local health clinic. A hundred dollars can put a nun in clothing, shoes and hygiene products for an entire year. Those dollars are hard to come by in the remote, nearly forgotten region. Imagine living with limited heat, in a perpetually cold climate, with only a few hours of electricity per day. In some areas, the nuns must melt ice for water. Some of the nunneries have no communal kitchen. Unlike other areas, where the locals help the nuns with ample donations of food and clothing, Zanskar valley is impoverished and typically the monks receive the better donations. Their best hope of aid comes from Gaden Relief, a tiny certified charity in Toronto, Canada, who have helped the Zanskar nuns since 1991. Last year, Irina Safonova of Gaden Relief, a Canadian certified charity, was touring the valley, to see first hand what their most urgent needs were, which led to the current GoFundMe fundraising. Gofundme campaign to hep the Nuns of Zanskar: https://www.gofundme.com/serving-hope Read more in the full feature: https://buddhaweekly.com/the-forgotten-nuns-of-zanskar-9-b/