Want to know the story behind the yak hair blankets?
A Tibetan family and their yak "HEART TO HEART" Compassionate Yak: How using a yak hair blanket brings warmth to you and helps impoverished children, women and girls, in Nepal
Two girls from the orphanage where HANDS in Nepal supports through education scholarships
A Tibetan Refugee woman weaves yak hair into a shawl on her treadle loom
At Jawalakhel Tibetan Camp, Jan Sprague and Tibetan "Amma" with Amma's hand-loomed yak hair shawl
My latest venture to help support our education in the remote and impoverished areas of Nepal is creating a store to sell yak hair products. Why yak hair? This warm, natural fiber comes from the yak, a high altitude bovine found in both Nepal and Tibet. The long under hairs when sheared and combed create a yarn that Nepalis and Tibetans can use for making shawls, blankets and scarfs-and handbags! The Yak is also a symbol for Tibetan culture. Yak herding and yak by products, like milk and butter, are staples of a Tibetan life and culture that has existed at the top of the world for hundreds of years.
My first few trips to Nepal, I was surprised by the piles of yak hair blankets and shawls in the market places. Bringing a few home, friends loved their soft texture and warmth. On subsequent trips, I brought home more and began to sell them, putting the profits back into our HANDS in Nepal school projects. At Christmas, the blankets became even more popular as unique gifts that held a special message-wrap yourself in yak hair, and help support an impoverished child in Nepal.
But the blankets do even more. A year ago, I went to Nepal to assist my son with school building and had my own personal mission-to discover the source and makers of the yak hair. I did not want to discover the blankets being made in a sweat shop or by children in some dark and dank 3rd world factory. It didn't take long to find my source-a Tibetan refugee camp outside Patan, one of Kathmandu's older neighboring provinces. Some 40 years ago, the Dalai Lama provided money and support to build a two story concrete structure for Tibetan exhiles who has fled Tibet under Chinese occupation.
Today, this bustling "camp" houses a few hundred Tibetans who work at a variety of handicrafts to support themselves. Under an outdoor canopy stood two large looms, and at one a woman worked diligently on her blanket design. Here was the true home of the yak hair. We also were shown a large building that housed rows and shelves of yarns-some yak wool and some sheep-all dyed in vibrant hues. Large yarn skeins as big as barrels sat in piles on the floor. Some of the yarn was used for the making of Tibetan hand-knotted rugs, and others for the blankets and shawls.
I have an arrangement to order from Jawalakhel Tibetan Refugee Camp. By ordering from these Tibetan refugees who are trying to support themselves through traditional Tibetan handicrafts, I feel I am accomplishing two things: supporting the Tibetans, and taking any profits made through sales of the yak hair to put into our education programs in Nepal.
It's a good cause, one where everyone wins. The Tibetans get well-deserved business and can continue practicing an art they have brought from the Himalayas-extremely poor children get an education and chance at a better life than the streets offer, and buyers of the yak blankets get to wrap themselves in a product that gives warmth-and beauty-to their hearts. So I call it "Heart-To-Heart."
Here's my goal in bringing the yak hair blankets and shawls to market:
2. Help ease the suffering of refugees that don't have a safe country anymore
3. Save young women and girls from being put back out onto the mean streets and into potential 'human trafficking'
4. Keep kids safe by funding HANDS in Nepal school and scholarships
5. Help support the saving of a culture that China is trying to destroy by buying a piece of Tibetan culture. In the next several decades this entire culture could be wiped out.
I truly feel we can make a big difference-one blanket at a time. I hope one reaches your heart soon!
You can email me for more information at: jansprague2@gmail.com
