The troubles endured by the Tibetan people are some of the toughest in the history of mankind. Founded in 1963, the Sera Monastic University was the first monastery in India, where monks in exile were trying to recreate the great monasteries of Tibet. Sera Monastery started with only 300 monks, who were at first living under a tent and then in little houses, that were kindly provided by the Indian authorities. As problems grew bigger in Tibet, more and more monks went in exile and the number of monks has gradually increased until reaching 6000 nowadays.
This huge monastic complex has different branches or monastic houses where monks live. As in the great monasteries of central Tibet, each house is linked to a province or in this case linked to a monastery in Tibet and has to accommodate the monks attached to it. These houses function independently and have to find their own donators to provide the monks with the living necessities. As the monastery has been constantly growing, many of these houses have faced great difficulties to lodge more and more monks and several extensions had to be built in a hurry. Namkha Rinpoche and his association have already financed an extension of the Sershul monastic house, costing about 130,000 USD. Today, the 40 monks are living there in good conditions and can study in a good atmosphere.

However, other houses are still facing great difficulties. During our visit in March 2008, it was clear that the Ngari monastic house, that receives monks from Western Tibet and Indian Buddhist regions such as Ladak, has the worst living conditions of the whole Sera monastic complex. This monastic house accommodates about 150 monks, who stay in a 10 m2 room with four or five persons, making serious studies almost impossible and giving epidemics a chance to spread very quickly. We want to finance a new building with 40 rooms, which would be enough to give decent living conditions to these monks and to accomodate the coming of more monks (10 or 20 monks per year). The cost of the project is estimated at 290,000 USD. However, with half of this sum, 20 rooms could already be built to meet the most urgent needs of these monks.