Location: N/A
Welcome to the GoBeyond India trip logs! Below is a little bit about the staff that will be leading this summer. Enjoy!
PATRICK DOWD – Having grown up on a horse farm several miles outside of a one-stoplight town, Patrick first developed a passion for international travel during a semester in India during his junior year of college. His abiding love for the cultures of Tibet and the Himalayas began when he went to Dharamsala in 2012 as a Fulbright scholar. He spent the subsequent three years living with Tibetan communities in South Asia, continuing his study of Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy under the guidance of Buddhist lamas. In 2015, he began a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania focusing on indigenous education and language revitalization throughout the Tibetan-speaking world, affording him further research opportunities in the Himalayas and Tibet. On his graduation in 2017, he moved to Ladakh and directed the writing, illustration, and publication of the first-ever, full-length Ladakhi-centric storybook written in a colloquial Ladakhi and literary Tibetan hybrid. In September, he will begin his doctoral work in anthropology at the University of British Columbia where he will continue his research topic on language revitalization and indigenous education throughout the Tibetosphere. Patrick is extremely excited to introduce culture and place he loves to high school students.
LOBSANG RABSEL – Rabsel received his formal monastic education in Sera, Tibet. He went to India in 1993 and joined the Tibetan Transit School for two years before working at Khana Nirvana, restaurant and community hub, in Dharamsala for four years. In 1998, Rabsel handled the layout of Contact Magazine and also became the volunteer coordinator for Volunteer Tibet, where he remained until 2001. In 2003, he took full charge of Contact Magazine. Currently, he serves as the Lha Charitable Trust’s Deputy Director and Volunteer Coordinator.