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Dawa Dorjee, the first recipient of the USF-Tibetan Scholarship, met the Dalai Lama during the spiritual leader’s visit to USF Sept. 5.
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Escape From Tibet
When Dawa Dorjee was 9, he was hidden in the back of a beer delivery truck and driven from his home and family in Tibet. He stayed crouched in a box inside the truck for two weeks, scared and cold, traversing the rugged foothills of the Himalayas and hiding from Chinese soldiers along the way.
“I can’t say I left Tibet,” he said. “I escaped.”
His destination: Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama has established a network of schools for Tibetan refugee children to be educated and practice Tibetan Buddhism. Dorjee has yet to see his father again, and saw his mother only briefly nine years ago. But he says he and his parents are confident that their sacrifice will open opportunities.
It already has. Today, Dorjee is a freshman at the University of San Francisco. The 21-year-old is studying child psychology with the help of the University of San Francisco’s USF-Tibetan Scholarship. The four-year scholarship provides full tuition, fees, room and board, books, incidentals, and travel expenses for a graduate of the Dalai Lama’s schools in India. It was awarded in conjunction with the Dalai Lama’s Sept. 5 visit to the university.
Dorjee says his USF education is the best way he can help Tibet.
“The most important thing as people of a lost country, is that we be ready to serve our people,” he said. “My top priority is to study, to get a good education. It is my duty to my people to bring awareness wherever I go to let people know what our message is. We don’t have any problems with Chinese people. What we are fighting for is truth, nonviolence, and kindness.”
More than 2,000 children like Dorjee and his sister, who also escaped with him, flee Tibet each year for religious freedom and education in India. Many make the perilous trek across the Himalayas, often losing toes, fingers, or feet along the way from frostbite. Approximately 20,000 children have been secreted to this network of schools in the last two decades. The Dalai Lama works to maintain his schools for refugee children, providing them with the freedom and education they would not enjoy under Chinese rule, and to preserve the ancient cultural traditions of Tibet.
Dorjee was one of 80 students to apply for the USF scholarship and he received the top score on a test taken by 20 finalists. This semester, he is taking psychology, Hinduism, English as a Second Language, and rhetoric and writing. But the highlight of his semester came early on, when he met the Dalai Lama during his visit to campus, a meeting that had him as nervous as he was excited.
“The teachings of His Holiness have always helped me in my troubled times,” he said. “Every Tibetan one day wants to meet His Holiness.”
During their meeting in Loyola House and at a breakfast for donors who contributed to the USF-Tibetan Scholarship Fund, Dorjee told the Dalai Lama of his plan to use his education to help his people.
“In order to build a nation, a society, and a world on truth, justice, you need a good educational system,” he said. “I want to serve my people by bringing positive change to society though education.”
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