By Phuntsok Yangchen
DHARAMSHALA, September 10: The Tibetan Women’s Association today commemorated its 30th re-founding anniversary here at LhaGyal Ri. Rinchen Khando Choegyal, former cabinet minister and former president of TWA attended the function as the Chief Guest. Also present were Tibetan Parliamentarians, representatives of NGOs and over a hundred others.
Addressing the function, Rinchen Khando said, “we should find out what we can contribute to the cause by putting all our efforts without losing the purpose. It is useless to do something because someone else is doing it, it is also useless to look at other nations’ women and follow them, instead we should look into women’s condition in our own community, find out the things that we are lacking and find a way to make it right according to our customs and traditions.”
She further called on fellow Tibetans to pay attention to the cause and political developments saying that the purpose of coming to exile is not met if we do not pay attention to political developments.
“TWA’s political stand is Middle Way and it is important to understand and learn all about MWA, what really is MWA, how it is a better approach. One should adopt MWA after the clear understanding of MWA, and not because it is an approach proposed by the Tibetan spiritual leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama. That is not right,” Khando noted.
As a part of the celebration, Tibetans performed a traditional Tibetan circle dance (GorShey).
The organization traces its origin back to March 12, 1959 in Lhasa, when thousands of Tibetan women gathered in front of the Potala Palace to protest the Chinese invasion as a show of their solidarity to Tibetan National Uprising two days before.
Re-established in exile in 1984, TWA has 56 regional chapters spread across the globe and over 17,000 members outside Tibet working under the slogan ‘Advocacy for home, Action in exile.’
