{"id":1620592,"date":"2024-04-19T21:19:58","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T21:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/tibet\/university-award-04192024165717.html"},"modified":"2024-04-19T21:19:58","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T21:19:58","slug":"dalai-lamas-sister-receives-award-for-educating-tibetans-in-exile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/19\/dalai-lamas-sister-receives-award-for-educating-tibetans-in-exile\/","title":{"rendered":"Dalai Lama\u2019s sister receives award for educating Tibetans in exile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n
The younger sister of the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has received a prestigious university award for her lifelong dedication to educating Tibetan children who live in exile.<\/span><\/p>\n Jetsun Pema<\/span><\/a>, 84, received the <\/span>Pearl S. Buck Award<\/span><\/a>, with a medallion and a cash prize of US$25,000, from Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia, on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n Pema, revered by Tibetans as \u201cAmala,\u201d or \u201cRespected Mother,\u201d has built one of the most successful Tibetan educational institutions abroad \u2014 the Tibetan Children's Villages, or TCV. The nonprofit organization cares for and educates orphaned, destitute and refugee children from Tibet. Its main facility is in Dharamsala in northern India.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She is the first Tibetan to receive the award given to women who exemplify the ideals, values and commitments of writer and novelist Pearl S. Buck, the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature and a champion of women\u2019s and children\u2019s rights.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe had some amazing nominations, and when the nominations for Jetsun Pema came through, it just felt like this is [someone] who exemplifies Pearl Buck and her commitments to people of Asia and the children, and her commitment to education,\u201d college president Sue Ott Rowlands told Radio Free Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n Pema was also the f<\/span>irst woman elected to a ministerial post in the Tibetan parliament-in-exile, serving as minister for education.<\/span><\/p>\n Officially recognized by the Tibetan parliament-in-exile as the \u201cMother of Tibet,\u201d Pema worked at TCV for over five decades.<\/span><\/p>\n She served as president of TCV from 1964 to 2006 and was instrumental in leading the expansion of schools across India and in caring for and educating over 53,000 Tibetan children who had escaped Tibet and were separated from their families, or who were orphaned or from underprivileged families. <\/span><\/p>\n