A Brief Account of this Website and Development ངོ་སྤྲོད་དབྱིན་ཡིག
A Brief Account of this Website and Development
First of all, we pay respect and welcome all of you!
What you are seeing now is the Dege Website.
You might then wonder as to who is its father who gave birth to it, who is its mother who sustains it, what is its goal and what does it aim to propagate. At this time when there is explosion of new scientific technology, many Tibetans, including our people from Dege region of Tibet became users of these new technologies. Many young people from Dege started using this cell phone application called “WeChat” to conduct virtual meetings and discussions. The birth of this website started right at that time.
On November 17, 2012, Wangdrak Dorje, son of Shri-la family, formed a group consisting of fellow participants in the We Chat forum, some of whom are from Dege while others are not. However, he did not give a particular name to the group at the time (we later learned that the group owed its formation to his accidental typing and input and was not intentionally formed). One day Chamra Drimey Gyaltsen suddenly named the group as Phunu’i Dhroe-ra (Forum for Brothers). Within few days many individuals from Dege joined the group and it was thus transformed into one consisting of people only from the Dege region. After many discussions a new hope grew and all agreed that it would be good if we were able to form an organization. In accordance with everyone’s agreement, Chamra also drafted an organizational charter that was accordingly implemented. Within few days the membership was filled to the maximum (We Chat forum can have maximum of 40 members).
Chamra Drime Gyaltsen was elected by the majority as the president. Under his direction we organized talks on Tibetan history in general and history of Dege region of Tibet in particular. We also organized talks concerning introduction to Tibetan Buddhism as well as broadcasting Tibet-related news. On November 24, we organized for the first time a conference on the theme, “Historical and Contemporary Dege” that was immensely popular and beneficial. As a result many more individuals expressed their desire to join the group. Since the group can only have a maximum number of 40 people, we named the original group as Upper Brothers’ Forum and formed a new affiliated group on December 1st and named it Lower Brothers’ Forum. On December 1 and 2, we organized the second forum on the theme, “How Contemporay Dege People Should Preserve Our Ancestral Tradition”. Many young people from Dege region were able to participate. It generated much inspiration and confidence among them sowing seeds for collective action.
On December 6, 2012, a group was formed and was named Middle Brothers’ Forum. It was decided that the Upper and Middle Forums were restricted for members who live outside Tibet and the Lower Forum was open for members from both inside and outside Tibet. Within this lower forum, a policy was made not to talk or share photos that may endanger the lives of the participants from Tibet. Further, so as to ensure that the organization does not lose its vision on the way, a charter consisting of nine articles was drafted based on majority support.
Within a short period of time, more than hundred prominent individuals from around 13 different countries gathered in three forums, the upper, the middle and the lower. For many days all the members expressed the importance of creating a website for the organization. Although many volunteered to make donations, it was decided not to solicit any donations and donations will only be accepted when they were given without solicitation.
At that time, on December 12, 2012, Chamrawa was able to begin the construction of this website. Following are the objectives of the creation of this website:
1. Through this convenient platform of website, to provide easy access to resources for Tibetans in general as well as to the people of Dege and those who are interested in our issues and wanted to undertake research.
2. To ensure that the history of our ancestors who had made great contributions to the society are not forgotten.
3. To be able to clearly explain with ease to the younger generations who have been brought up in various environments and situations our land, our culture, religion and situation.
4. Through these to protect Tibetan language by ensuring that it catches with changing times.
5. To be able to move forward into the future with unity through this platform
Within this website, we have sections on the history of Tibet in general, history of Dege, culture, people, local traditions, monasteries, essays and news. We also requested the members to gather manuscripts and books on sacred places, mountains, monasteries, people etc. within one’s own locality. For a month Changrawa worked day and night facing all challenges and undertook the farsighted task of collecting documents. As a result, within the constraints of time, labor and budget, we were able to upload various things like tales and history. We are working continually in unity to improve and add more things by collecting documents and photos. We also highly appreciate if you also, apart from pointing that this or that is missing, give us documents and photos that you were able to gather.
The Brothers’ Forum is here for us and for our nation. As such we request you to support us as much as possible with an open mind and with a sense of great social dedication.
May all be successful!
From the General Management of Brothers’ Forum,
(Feb’ 5, 2013)
One Response
བསམ་ཚུལ་འབྲི།
འཛེམ་བྱ་ཁག་ཅིག
Dear brothers and Sisters,
I’m really pleased to knew about the hard work done by our fellow dhege brothers. As i particularly descended from a dheghe region family and today i feels that even i too have a such strong fellow brothers. Coz,earliers wherever i used to go there were many groups, which is apart from Dhege and i feel partial from them. Hence, i pray god for this group to make a eternal journey for a great success. God bless Dhege
Thank you