Answers to the FAQ
How long will the adoption last?
We require at least three years, but it’s a moral commitment not a legal one.
If you have problems in keeping your adoption you can tell it to the Organization and we will stop it.
What does Yeshe Norbu do?
We are all volunteers and we are taking care of the adoptions after work in the afternoons, in the evenings and over the weekends.
As in all the organizations, except perhaps for the biggest and more bureaucratized, we always have little time and too many things to do:
- to select who needs help, to create a database and update it;
- to create a sheet with the adopted personal information;
- to get in touch with whom is interested in the adoption and give them all the information they need;
- to raise, book and send the money;
- to press for late or forgotten payments;
- to solve the problems between who’s been adopted and who adopts (for instance, if after some letters there is no answer);
- to keep us well informed on what happens in the places where the money goes, so that we can be sure everything is ok.
Those not intending to maintain the adoption for a minimum of three years, can make a donation, even small, and in that way indirectly support the entire community.
How do you choose who’s in need?
Our cooperators (people we trust) in India and in Nepal periodically tell us about people seriously in need of help for themselves or for helping others with their activities, for instance the monks.
Can we make collective adoptions?
Certainly yes: classes, associations, colleagues or friends can divide the amount up and share an adoption.
How is money given?
If the child lives with the family, money is directly given to the parents, if he/she is in a boarding school or in an orphanage, the fee is paid to the management.
The money for the monks or the nuns goes into the monastery common fund. So we can avoid unpleasant situations in which people living and eating together have big different living and money conditions.
The adopted person therefore, receives nothing more than the others but some clothes and some pocket money.
How can I communicate with my adopted person?
We encourage the adopted and the adoptive to develop a human relationship besides a purely economic one, exchanging letters, updated information, pictures, etc.
When you receive the sheet with the name and the address, you can start writing (in English) to the adopted person, explaining, if a child, that you want to help him/her to grow up, if a monk or a nun, to keep alive the Buddhist practice of meditation, ethical integrity and non-violence .
Communication is rarely easy as we wish: the Mail service is not very reliable and in many cases the adopted person isn’t able to read, let alone a letter written in English: they need to find someone who can translate the letter, to understand the meaning correctly and to write an answer.
The "translator" often changes and there may be some small misunderstandings.
Moreover culture and life experiences are really different: what is clear for us, may not be so natural for a Tibetan refugee and vice versa.
What shall I do if I don’t get an answer to my letter?
If you don’t receive any answer, you need to call the Italian contact you find in the adopted personal information sheet, who knows the situation of the area where your adopted person lives and who can get in touch with to the local person in-charge.
What shall I do for the tax deduction?
You only need to keep the bank or the post receipts and give them to the accountant that draws up your income tax return.
The amounts are deducible according to the current law .
Which are the community projects?
These are projects to support a whole community rather than a single person.
They can be material projects such as wells, hygienic and sanitary facilities, (among them there is a house for disabled children and adults) or cultural projects, to safeguard the essence of Tibetan spirituality, made up of knowledge of oneself, non-violence, respect for the others and for nature.
Yeshe Norbu is the main sponsor of a dispensary in the suburbs of Kathmandu and it runs a small orphanage in the extreme north of Nepal.
The main initiative is the sponsorship of Sera-je Food Fund.
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