Seeing Impact Come Alive

In December, 2019, Blueshift was invited to spend two weeks at Jhamtse Gatsal (Tibetan for ‘Garden of Love and Compassion’) Children’s Community in Northeast India. Fran rode planes, cars, and helicopters to get to this gorgeous and remote corner of the world and witness how the community puts love and compassion at the center of every aspect of life. For two weeks she immersed herself – living, teaching, eating, and building relationships with the students and staff in order to create a new educational resource in support a new phase of impact the community is undertaking. 

Jhamtse Gatsal is the school featured in the documentary Tashi and the Monk (2015) directed by Andrew Hinton and Johnny Burke. Today, Jhamtse Gatsal continues to flourish as a school and as a deeply committed to teaching and practicing the values of love and compassion, and working towards transforming the lives of both the students and the staff.

Five years after the film’s release, Tashi and the Monk continues to be widely viewed and applied in schools across the globe. When we last looked there have been over half a million views of the film and counting. The film has elicited visitors from all over the world -no easy task at is located in very remote location in the lower Himalayas – and Gen Lobsang la (“the Monk”) continues to be invited to speak internationally, share his story  and the ever evolving and growing work of Jhamtse Gatsal.

For example last fall, in response to the invitation by Israel’s Ministry of Education, Gen la spoke and listened to Israeli and Palestinian educators, and shared his insights on how to nurture and work with communities who have experienced trauma.

It is difficult to list all the ripples of impact the documentary has generated, but the momentum and the power of one story continues to enrich the lives of so many,  including the characters in the film.