The Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund (TPAF) gives priority to projects able to strengthen the capacities of Tibetans to secure sustainable employment, income and improved living standards in Tibet’s dynamic modern sector. TPAF also gives priority to projects that contribute to family health and well-being. Our work seeks to demonstrate successful approaches that can be scaled up or adopted by Tibet’s public services. We encourage local government to adopt poverty alleviation approaches found to be more effective in generating increased employment and income for local families, and in contributing to improved health and well-being.  

TPAF understands that successful poverty alleviation programs are built and implemented in collaboration with local Tibetan community leaders, local government officials and Tibetan training and service provision institutions that have long experience helping to improve Tibetan working opportunities and living standards.

Since its foundation, TPAF has concentrated its rural improvement programs primarily in poor villages of townships in Lhoka and Nakchu Prefectures that represent the diversity of Tibetan culture and economic life. Since 2007 TPAF has also been working actively in Namling County of Shigatse Prefecture, the largest and poorest county in Tibet.  

•        Lhoka Prefecture is a mixed farming region located in South-Central Tibet;

•        Nakchu Prefecture is a predominantly nomadic livestock region in North-Central Tibet;

•        Namling County is a mixed farming and nomadic livestock region in Eastern Shigatse
  Prefecture.

Programs in townships of  these three regions have varied according to local conditions and priority needs, but have generally included microfinance to help households introduce new income generating activities, skills training and small enterprise development intended to enhance employment and income opportunities and measures to strengthen basic health, including reproductive health.

In response to increasing Tibetan unemployment in rural areas, and the consequent increasing relocation of Tibetan youth into urban areas without skills for modern employment, TPAF has introduced training in employable skills in Nakchu and Lhasa Municipalities and in Townships of Namling County.  This training has recently been instrumental in expanding such employable skills as rural housing construction, motorcycle and agricultural machinery repair, stone cutting and furniture making.  A high percentage of graduates have found jobs in urban and rural areas.

TPAF is also assisting over 500 Tibetan artisans to improve the design, quality and sales of their products in the Lhasa tourist market. Its Dropenling Handicraft Development Center operates as a social enterprise providing direct training and advisory assistance to Tibetan artisans, and its emporium sells their products to local tourists and others in Beijing and international markets.