Lhakar Update

It’s been a while since I posted so I thought I’d write a short post to update everyone on the Lhakar kind of day I had today.

One of the many Ottawa Tibet Film Festival posters around Ottawa posted in front of Parliament Hill

The Ottawa Tibetan community, although very small in size (about 20 Tibetans here, half of them babies :p) have spent the last half year or so working on organizing the first ever Ottawa Tibet Film Festival. This festival will screen 5 Tibetan films over two days this week and has received a lot of support from the community so far. It’s the first time something like this has been done here so it’ll be really interesting to see how it goes this weekend. Our ad in the Metro Ottawa paper got published today which was really exciting to see! We also had one of our members do a radio interview earlier today with a local radio station. It was really encouraging to hear the radio host really interested and asking many questions about what the situation inside Tibet is like. For more information on the festival, visit: www.OttawaTibetFilmFestival.com

Ottawa Tibet Film Festival ad in Metro News Ottawa today

Then tonight, the Tibetan community had a chance to have an intimate momo night with Canadian Member of Parliament, and Chair of the Canadian Parliamentary Friends of Tibet David Sweet, with whom we had co-organized a film screening of Dhondup Wangchen‘s ‘Leaving Fear Behind‘ at Parliament. We got the opportunity to speak with him, and Dechen Pemba, Editor of High Peaks Pure Earth (among many other things!), who will be a guest speaker at the Ottawa Tibet Film Festival, even presented a letter to the Member of Parliament on behalf of Lhamo Tso, the wife of political prisoner Dhondup Wangchen, appealing for support for Golog Jigme, who is currently missing.

Dechen Pemba with MP David Sweet

Anyway it’s been a very Lhakar day, and the rest of the week will be spent busily preparing for the film festival. By the way, if any of you have friends in Ottawa, send them our way. Peysho!

The Ottawa Tibetan community with Dechen Pemba, Ugen Badheytsang (SFT Canada National Director), Tsewang Dhondup (a gunshot wound survivor of the 2008 Uprisings in Tibet), and Kushok Jamyang, with Canadian Member of Parliament and Chair of the Canadian Parliamentary Friends of Tibet David Sweet.