Volume 4 No. 9 SECMOL ALTERNATIVE INSTITUTE FORTNIGHTLY NEWSLETTER

News Headlines

• On 19th of August, our five volunteers went to see the Pangong Lake and came back
• Our campus director Acho Norgay went to his home and also he came back from home.
• Achy Becky took Mother cat and kitten to Saboo for sterilizations.
• On 7th of August, the National Geographic group was left from our Campus.
• Our campus director acho Norgay went to his home and also he came back from home.
• On 19th of August, our five volunteers went to see the Pangong Lake and came back
• On28th of August Pintu Nurbu, Member of Legislative Assembly(MLA) and few other people visited our campus.
• Achey Becky took students to the Dentist at Mahabodhi hospital.The dentist is from Germany.
• On 1st sept, Jullay Ladakh group arrived here.

Annual Alfalfa picnic at Phey.

On 8th of August, as we do every year,we did annual alfalfa picnic at Phey. All the students went early morning for cutting the alfalfa at Azang Stobdan grassland. All the students walked up to there. It did not take much time to finish harvest the alfalfa because there were many students present. There were around more than forty students. Most of the boys cut the alfalfa and most of the girls bind the alfalfa in small quantity. Many of the students have not experience of cutting alfalfa because they don't grow such thing over their places.




Good things about the students was that almost all the students have experience of harvest barley at their homes. We finished it by 1:00 O'clock. We had breakfast and lunch there. Seeing the need of more alfalfa for our cows, we bought more grass from near to our Campus. We cut it during the work time and finished it as well. After ten days, we hired the truck from Leh office and brought the dried alfalfa from Phey. Feed and fodder storage for cows in winter is being undertaken.

Art Workshop

Two days art workshop with Baptiste .He came from Mumbai. He taught us how to make paper planes and all the students joined in this workshop. We each made an artwork expressing our aims and using one of the paper airplanes. It was our first time we did this kind of art by collecting various pictures. Everyone enjoyed that session very much.


Future Earth Network Meeting

There are five members organizations in Future Earth Network these are: LEDeG, Women Alliance, LEHO, Amchi Sabha and SECMOL. In that meeting two to three members from each organization turned up, most importantly Ache Helena Norberg Hodge and the coordinator of Asian network organizations of Future Earth Mr. Nils and Norbu Tundup in the meeting. The meetings began with a briefing and some clarifications given by Mr. Deen director LEHO on the last FE meetings issues.

As per the earlier meeting held among the organization there was workshop on Peak Oil which refers to the time which the extraction of oil in the world reaches the highest. A film was shown about Cuba on what circumstances it had to face and later what mode of development took place. Finally there was a presentation on what SECMOL has been doing towards the use of natural energy in daily life and how the campus has been with the nature all the time and making people realized the possibility of using solar energy in various purpose without spending too much money. After the presentation participants came up with various question regarding the use of solar energy and its benefits to all. Some inconveniences seems to be felt to people when they think of building a solar building but those could be because people are not aware of its benefits since they did not build. Then here the meetings ends with a conclusion of that active participants and in next meeting participants should come up with some action plans of how we convince people and advocate the government in harnessing solar energy. As it was discussed that the meeting is to hold at Women Alliance in Leh at around same time next month.




After finishing the future earth network meeting, we asked Helena Dolma to give a talk to our students. Her talk was based on the book "Ancient Future Learning from Ladakh", which was published by Helena herself. She visits many countries in the world and she talks about the impact of Globalization in every place where she goes. Ladakh is one of this places. She has been staying in Ladakh for many years. Here in our campus also she talked about globalization. Keeping in view that most of our students are new, she gave a simple talk comparing Ladakh with the rest of the world. She talked about the changes that she has seen during her stays in Ladakh. She talked about how Ladakh was affected by the outsiders with the opening of road to Ladakh at first and then opening Ladakh to the foreigners in 1974.

Guest Speaker Helena Norberg Hodge
She told that how people are influenced from advertisement that are on the televisions. She advised the students not to feel inferior to the culture that we have in Ladakh. She strongly emphasized not to imitate the things that are shown in the television. At the end she asked the students to ask question and some student asked interesting questions.



Expected Groups
On 1st -3rd September, Jullay Ladakh from Japan will come 20 people 1st sept.-arrive afternoon/evening. 2nd day morning work project in small groups with Ladakhi students. Especially environmental things or things related to our responsibilities -e.g. garden ,cow, cooking, clean solar cookers or panels etc. 3rd day they will leave after breakfast. On 12th -13th sept. another Jullay Ladakh group from Japan total about 24 people. On 15th -27th Carpe Dien, us student group mostly on campus for volunteering, some guest speakers & field trips. Trek 27sept.-30,fly out 1st . Then VIS (Vermont inter culture semester)arrives hear 28th September and will stay until December.

WASHING PICNIC

On 24th August washing picnic was enjoyed at the bank of Indus river. All the students were there to wash the carpets, blankets, pillow covers, bad sheets etc. It was fun to be at the Indus bank once



in a while to enjoy the natural water splashing.

After breakfast, all the students went down there into Indus with the clothes.There we wait for the surfs powder and most of the students enjoyed going in to the river and some boys swam in it. Then after sometime some students bought surf and we started washing the clothes.By the noon of the day all the clothes were washed. We had tea there and came back for lunch. After lunch we had rest till tea time. After tea we went to pick up the dry clothes. Bye bye dirt.....

Deer Park from Himachal Pradesh
On 10th of August, a group from an organization called Deer Park from Himachal Pradesh came here. It is a Buddhist organization. They told us about engaged Buddhism. They showed us some movies related to Environment. After watching the movies we had discussion about it. There were five people, three from Bihar, one from Laos (where Achey Youdon a former student currently is) and one woman from Cambodia.

TREK TO RUMBAK

The National Geographic group and some foundation students went to trek to Rumbak for two days. They stayed at Home stay villages like Rumchung and Rumbak and also they visited to Stok-La.

Campus Repairing Starts

After a long search of labor for the plaster and painting walls of building in campus, four painters followed by one mason and one laborer were called to the campus. In two days half of the rooms in the big building were completely painted while the plastering is still going on in the corridor of the building.

Some parts of the plaster sounded empty when we knocked it and also saw some cracks on the wall. The masons recommended us to redo all the plaster. In fact the plaster was least 10 years old if not more.

Campus decided to repair many parts of the buildings as they are seen odd. There are so many things to be finished by the next month which include putting metal frame for plastic sheet for bathrooms and some other buildings. To replace the over hang of the bathroom with a cement plaster was also part of the renovation work.

There five Telephone lines coming to the campus and have not been working as they should be, so the person from telephone exchange was called to fix them. Now, all the main lines are working after a days work was carried out. The problems seemed to be with the EPABX the intercom system here in campus, the tel. exchange person said. There was also a need to chang the wiring which was finished as well.

All the major maintenance work will be finished within this month according to our expectation .


Once there was a lawyer and clerk.
The lawyer said to the clerk that the clerk was
not very good in English. The lawyer said. HANG
HIM NOT, RELEASE HIM. The clerk wrote
HANG HIM, NOT RELEASE HIM. After that the
clerk sent hang so in this we must do our English
good.
By Po Gyaltsan

You are our god
Oh !Holiness oh! Holiness
You are my precious person
Oh! mom oh! mom
But you are also my life
By Jigmet Tsering

"The world is too dangerous to live in,
not because of people who do evil but
because of people who sit and let it happen"
Albert Einstein rightly remarked
this. I also think, that to be a spectator for
an evil and doing nothing is really dangerous
. what you all think???????
By kunzes (Rellay)

Make time for your family .
Make space for your dreams
.and be your own boss .
My father always says. “education is the
one cure for all insecurity”.
By S.Yangdol Takchik

While this door is closing ,
another door is opening it's our job to go find
that door.
By Tsetan Skyindang

SUCCESS
S-Set your goal
U-understand the problems
C- clear your doubts
C-choose your path
E- embrace your challenge
S- stay on track
S-show that you can do it.
by Stobdan

Friend is the best Love
Love is the best honesty
Honesty is the best policy
Policy is the best society
Society is the best life
Life is the best friend
Friendship never die.
by Jigmat Angmo

Editors:Stanzin Shayok and Tsetan Dolma