In the ceremony of Vale Award on Innovative Public Participation in Western China Ecological Conservation hosted at the National Convention Center on June 29^th, The Pendeba Society was awarded with the top prize – the Special Project Award for its Nature Conservation and Community Development Project and 250,000 yuan as the project fund.  Mr. Tsering Norbu, Director of The Pendeba Society accepted the award on behalf of this project.  Mr. JIA Feng, Director of the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s Center for Environmental Education and Communication (CEEC) awarded him with the certificate and trophy. “Thank you for all your support for the Pendeba Project.  We will continue our efforts on the project and make it better,” Tsering Norbu enthused in his acceptance speech that indicated the hard work of Pendeba staff in Tibet for more than twenty years. Since the official launch of the Pendeba Project in 1994, the Project and later The Pendeba Society has created a bottom-up conservation and development model through the hard work by Future Generations and The Pendeba Society staff, participatory trainings and active community involvement, and the trainings of pendebas to lead local communities to better practice environmental conservation and achieve lasting community development in the Mt. Everest region.  In the event of final examination on the morning of June 29^th, the presentation by Tsering Norbu has gained praise and support from the demanding judging panel and the Pendeba Project was accepted in consensus as an innovative sustainable development model and therefore awarded the prize.

On June 11, 2011, The Pendeba Society received a workgroup of 6 people from Chinese National Geography (CNG) magazine and ONE Foundation who was on their mission to visit schools located in the Mt. Everest region. 

We had a very interactive conversation with senior staff from both organizations including Ms. CAI Huaye, CEO of CNG New Media and Ms. Amy Shu, Deputy Director of Partnership Development from ONE Foundation. During the conversation we introduced The Pendeba Society to our guests and discussed our work strategies and past and current projects in QNNP. We also showed our guests around the Exhibition Hall at the Training Center, giving brief introduction of QNNP’s geographical and social settings in front of QNNP’s topographical sand modes.

Our guests all expressed keen interest in the work of The Pendeba Society, and we hope that possible collaboration can be explored with both organizations in the near future. 

From June to August 2011, The Pendeba Society will be conducting a full survey of 323 pendebas who received trainings between 1994 and 2011. The purpose of this survey is to build a detailed database for pendebas, identify and evaluate the impacts those pendebas have had on their communities, and to determine key focuses for The Pendeba Society’s future projects in QNNP. 

Teamed up by Tsering Norbu, LIU Rongkun and Norbu Dundup, a Tingri native who just joined The Pendeba Society for this project, the survey officially started on June 6, 2011 by first looking for pendebas residing in neighboring townships and villages in Tingri County. The first day’s results were very positive and we have got full profiles of 6 pendebas who attended the pendeba trainings in 2010 and 2007. These pendebas include the village leader of Enba Village of Zhaguo Township and women’s leaders of Banglai and Zhaga Villages. And from June 7 to 8, we have got another 19 pendebas’ information from Shegar Town’s Linsa, Qulai, Maxia Villages, and others. These pendebas all expressed their appreciation of being a pendeba and keen interest in participating in The Pendeba Society’s future trainings.

On May 29, 2011, The Pendeba Society met with Mr. Tashi Tsering, eminent Tibetan educationalist and founder of Tashi Tsering Education Fund, and was honored to receive 50 sets of New Trilingual (English-Tibetan-Chinese) Dictionary donated by the Fund. The Pendeba Society would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Tashi Tsering Education Fund for their generous support and help, and hopes to enhance our collaboration in the near future. 

(Photo: Norbu presents a Letter of Thank You to Ms. Tsering Wangmo, Director of Tashi Tsering Education Fund)

On May 19th, 2011, The Pendeba Society received a group of entrepreneurs including Mr. LEI Yongsheng, Secretary of LAO NIU Foundation, Ms. ZHANG Min, Supervisor of ONE Foundation and others at our Training Center. 

In the morning, The Pendeba Society’s Executive Director, Tsering Norbu first gave a presentation to our honored guests about The Pendeba Society’s workarea, the Qomolangma National Nature Preserve, and then the background of The Pendeba Society and what The Pendeba Society has achieved since its foundation. During the presentation, all the guests expressed their encouragement and support to our work, as well as contributed a number of constructive comments and suggestions, which were of great help to The Pendeba Society’s work in the future.