Within Bhutan, a small Kingdom in the Himalayas, hidden away in the deep forest and high mountains, live the Monpa, the indigenous people considered the country’s first inhabitants. The Monpa asked the Tribal Trust Foundation (TTF) to help them preserve their ancient culture, which is based on living in harmony with nature and each other. In 2014, we were the first organization to support their cultural preservation initiatives. Dasho Dorji, a shaman, recognized that his people “would be traumatized by the rapid assimilation into the dominant culture” without our help. The TTF’s professional documentation from this initial trip resulted in recording the Monpa’s creation story, a promotional video for the preservation of their culture, a photography book entitled Echoes of Bhutan, and most importantly, the building of self-esteem among community members.

“If it wasn’t for the Tribal Trust Foundation, we would have lost our culture by now. But there is still work to do.” — Monpa Lama Dophu

The Tribal Trust Foundation continues to support the Monpa in carrying out their priority projects. In 2023 we provided funding, through a grant from Serving our Spirits, to establish the Research Project of Indigenous Monpa Culture and Tradition.

Monpa Elders are prioritizing indigenous language preservation. UNESCO International Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022-2032 recognizes, “Languages are one of the most significant emblems of human diversity, revealing how we can perceive, relate to, and understand the world differently. Languages are vehicles of our cultures, collective memory, and values. They are an essential component of our identities.”

The Monpas are translating their oral language into Dzongkha and English and creating a dictionary. Their language will be taught in the classroom of the local school.

TTF is supporting a grassroots sustainable cultural preservation initiative to document and revive the Monpa culture by supporting programming that enables Monpa Elders to teach their youth about the Monpa lineage, religious activities, traditional foods, crafts and dress using nettle cloth, songs, ceremonies, and medicine.

Monpa Elders, Shamans, and the Monpa Lama contributed their indigenous perspective on how to transform education in their community.

LOCAL PARTNERSHIP

The TTF has also partnered with the Tarayana Foundation to record the Monpa native language and stories, bamboo reintegration, and documenting in a book, the traditional knowledge and skills of Ap Twala, a natural healer. Creating a heritage museum and a pilot activity to domesticate some of the herbs used in Monpa traditional medicine are current projects.

For more than thirty years, Barry Shaffer has been a dentist, an educator, an international volunteer, a parent and a photographer. His experiences in all of these areas taught him that most people, whether they are anonymous individuals from the most remote corners of the globe or well-known Hollywood celebrities, share the same needs and have strikingly similar hopes, dreams and desires. With his photography, he strives to convey this human universality. By making his photographs and professional skills available to nonprofit organizations, he hopes to engender better understanding among people, help those struggling for life’s basic needs and do his small part to create a better planet.