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Tibet - Lhasa

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HEALING TOUCH REACHES OUT TO TIBET, 8-06

By Debra Denker BANTS, CHTP/I

"When I was told that there would be people coming to teach Healing Touch, I thought it would be something like yoga," says Sonam Lhamo, a staff member at One HEART, an organization providing maternal-child healthcare and skilled birth attendant training in the region around Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.

"So when I attended the training," she continues, "at first I found it strange and amusing, people lying on the table and healers using the hands. But gradually I thought, there's definitely this energy, and it is definitely science. So I learned that there is energy, and that it can be harmonized through Healing Touch."

Healing Touch extended its outreach into the Tibetan world in the summer of 2006 when a team including myself as instructor and three Healing Touch students journeyed to Lhasa. Like the previous ventures into Tibetan communities in India and Nepal, this trip was the vision of Canadian Tekla Fulton, R.N., a Healing Touch level 4 student and retired psych nurse from the Vancouverarea. Tekla facilitates volunteer service travel to South and Himalayan Asia through her organization, Unknown Sages, and knowing my decades-long connection with Tibet, asked me to teach there.

Under the auspices of Perception, the non-profit that sponsors my Tibetan Video Archive Project, I agreed to teach as well as document our travels and work. My friend Gail Watanabe, CHTI, held a fund-raiser in the Los Angeles area to make my trip possible.

Tekla had previously assisted at Level 1's in India and Kathmandu Nepal, both of which have large concentrations of Tibetans. Besides her and myself, our team included Page Herring, a Level 1 student from who is a longtime midwife and commercial fisherman, and Ugyen Tsewang, a young Tibetan man who had taken Level 2 in India.

When Tekla and I arrived in Lhasa in August, we began following up on groundwork laid by e-mail over a period of months. When Ugyen joined us a few days later, his background in Healing Touch coupled with his translation skills proved invaluable in our presentations to the directors of the Mendzikhang---the Traditional Tibetan Medicine College where the hospital's doctors are trained. We were unable to offer a Level 1 this year because the College was on summer break and the hospital required a number of official permissions which would take more time than we could stay in Tibel this year.

We began offering treatments, in our hotel room in Lhasa and wherever we went, from a local nunnery to remote villages. Page and I worked with a sick baby in a tent at Nam Tso, a spectacular tidal lake at nearly 15,000 feet. Despite her altitude headache, Page felt compelled to seek out the infant whose distressed cries she had heard all night.  

Our goal of teaching Healing Touch was realized when we approached One HEART at the suggestion of my friend Guru Chokyi, a young woman who had translated for the health care team I had traveled with to a remote region of Eastern Tibet in 2005. When I e-mailed Guru, who is now studying in the Philippines, that I was in Lhasa looking for a place to teach, she suggested that we contact her former boss, Pasang Tsering, Tibet Program Director for One HEART.

Pasang and his colleague Tseten Dolkar, coordinator of the Skilled Birth Attendant Program, immediately saw the value of Healing Touch for their staff. In the summer the six staff members go out into the field each week to implement programs such as training skilled birth attendants to address Tibet's high rate of infant and maternal mortality, and basic health care training including improved nutrition through the TSAMPA program and pre-natal and maternal-child health awareness through PAVOT, the Patient and Village Outreach Tibet program.

Upon receiving clearance from One HEART's home office in Salt Lake City, Utah, Pasang scheduled a one-day training with us. Regretfully, the busy field season meant that the staff couldn't take a full Level 1, so I brainstormed with Tekla, Page, and Ugyen about which techniques would be most useful to our students until we could return to teach them Level 1, part 2, hopefully next year.

Our six students were attentive and curious, serious yet good-humored. Though they are not full-time medical professionals, they are all active in health care outreach and have knowledge and experience in the field. At first they were skeptical of the pendulum, but when it came time for practice they each had validating experiences with assessing, treating, and receiving energy. 

"I don't think it is magic," says PAVOT project manager Pema Choezom about her HT experience. "I think it is related to science. I believe that everybody has this energy in themselves. When I attended the training, I thought it is very similar to Tibetan Medicine. It is not something strange that we have never heard of. I think there should be process training like this in every work place." 

At the end of the day, I presented each student with a kata, a traditional white silk honoring scarf, along with a certificate for completing the first 8 hours of Level 1. The students then thanked our team by presenting each of us with a kata. 

All the students expressed interest in continuing their HT training next year, beginning with Part 2 of Level 1 and perhaps going on to Level 2. They intend to use the techniques in their work, with each other and in their family lives.  

PAVOT coordinator Renzin sees the value of his HT training in the big picture: "I hope this Healing Touch will be available in all parts of the world, and I hope and pray that people around the world where there is a lot of need will be able to have this opportunity to learn and practice."

Tibet - Dharamsala

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HEALING TOUCH TAUGHT TO TIBETIAN MEDICAL STUDENTS
2005-2006

Healing Touch at Tibetan College

In the northeast corner of India, tucked away at the foot of the Himalaya mountains, live many of the Tibetans who have escaped from their native country after the Chinese invaded in 1949.  Thousands of men, women and children still pour into India seeking safe refuge after enduring the treacherous journey over the mountains. The health care needs of these courageous, gentle people are tended to in most part by Tibetan doctors who practice traditional Tibetan Medicine. Healing Touch is very compatible with the Tibetan Medical practices as it employs energy principles and understands  the flow through and chakras of the body.

In 2005 and again this year in 2006, Healing Touch Instructors Mary Frost and Teleka Fulton journeyed to the town of Dharamsala, home of His Holiness, The XIV Dalai Lama, to teach Levels 1 and 2. Classes have been taught at Men-Tsee-Khang College to Tibetan Medical Students, Tibetan Medical Doctors and other individuals desiring the information. Instructors have also been able to treat Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns who endured imprisonment in Tibet before escaping to India.

Thailand - Bankok

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CHRONIC ILLNESS CONFERENCE IN THAILAND, January 2006

Touched by Thailand
By Savitri Kumaran RNC, CHTP/I and Annis Parker RGON, DipEd, ADN, CHTP/I

We were invited by Dr. Ladawal Ounprasertpong to speak on Prevention and Management of Chronic Conditions which was held in Bangkok, Thailand in January 2006.  Dr Ladawal had taken a Level One Healing Touch class with Savitri in Honolulu several years ago.  

Our work in Thailand began with an eight hour Introduction to Healing Touch class.  Our organizers apologized for the small turnout - only 75 nurses gathered for this pre-conference workshop! 

The conference was co-sponsored by Yale, Temple Hill, and Madilol Universities and attended by approximately 500 health care professionals from 17 different countries.  We offered a two-hour break-out session on Healing Touch which was well attended, and we participated in a panel discussion "Complementary and Alternative Therapy for Chronic Illness for the entire group.  Savitri's presentation included Healing Touch International's power point presentation and demonstrations by Annis and Shivani.

This was the first experience with Healing Touch for this population and it was very well received.  

Savitri also taught a one-day class in Thailand which was attended by 75 participants. They were members of an Alumni association and a Complementary/Alternative Nursing association. Savitri had been invited to teach there by a woman who was studying in Honolulu and attended a Level 1 Healing Touch class.

South Africa

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CARRYING THE LIGHT INTO SOUTH AFRICA

By Robin Goff RN, BSN, MAV, CHTP/I

Returning from a visit in South Africa is always a bit of a culture shock, especially returning at Christmas time.  I am once again struck by the extreme separation of resources in our human family. 

In the US we are sheltered from the kind of poverty that is prevalent in so many countries in our world.  Yes, I am aware that we have poverty in the US as well, but in most of the continent of Africa, and countless other places, pandemics complicate issues like poverty and unemployment. 

Even 25 years into the HIV/AIDS pandemic, there seems to be a denial about the enormity of the devastation being caused by the death of a huge percentage of the young adult population of Sub-Saharan Africa.  It is estimated that South Africa will have between 5 & 7 million children orphaned by AIDS by 2010/2011.  Some predict that the number might be as high as 10 million and that is in an area about the size of Texas! 

After five trips there, I am only beginning to take in the depth of the situation and the complexities of addressing the needs of the people living in the wake of the pandemic.  Yet with each trip my conviction goes deeper to be willing to see the truth that humanity is in acute distress.

The children we visit in South Africa are so beautiful, bright and loving that one has to look deeper to see the tragic conditions they survive everyday.  Sweet tender children are faced with fending for themselves with no adult supervision amid the hostile environments filled with crime, abuse, drugs, and alcohol. 

As you get to know people more deeply, you hear stories that are unbearable.  Young children tending their parents or siblings as they die of AIDS or even worse, children dying alone with no adult to comfort them.  There are many good people there working to respond to the crisis but they often are plagued by compassion fatigue and many find themselves held captive by fear of the pervasive crime. 

When volunteers from the US come to assist, it brings a breath of fresh energy to those in the trenches who work to care for the sick and dying while addressing the needs of the orphaned and vulnerable children.  Often the very best thing we can do is to support the caregivers, many of whom are gogos (grandmothers).  While we cannot fix the problems, we can help to carry more light into the midst of the situation and restore some hope for people who work tirelessly there.

One of the highlights of my visit was to make home visits with some caregivers into an informal settlement area.  These caregivers had a Level One class with Mary Frost earlier this year and were clamoring for more.  I have a background in hospice chaplaincy and so I was able to mentor the caregivers about care for the dying patient.  Together we used Healing Touch, prayer and meditation with the patients we visited and the caregivers asked endless questions as we would walk between the homes. 

Caring for people dying with AIDS can be very difficult, but having the tools that HT provides is a wonderful addition to the caregiver's tool bag.  Another highlight was the HT Level One class I taught in Cape Town. It was a large class and 20 of the participants were young people in their twenties who serve as peer educators in the public schools.  Their program, Life Choice, has trained them to be positive role models for teenagers who are navigating the world of HIV.  

It was evident that these young people have learned to make choices for themselves and were open to exploring new ideas.  While being lively and fun, the group took the HT training seriously and they were quiet and attentive during the class sessions.  They asked good questions that revealed that they were thinking deeply about the information being presented. 

There is such a need for strong, young role models for children, especially those growing up without parents.  Quite a few of the Life Choice group were young men, which was a very hopeful sign to me.  The majority of children in South Africa are growing up without fathers and even orphan care centers are predominantly staffed by women.  Seeing these delightful young guys doing the Chakra Spread warmed my heart and gave me a deep sense of hope for the future of South Africa. 

Healing Touch is growing in South Africa and the caregivers in the Intro classes I offered were thirsty for the self-care we offer, tools to address difficult situations and ways to work in the absence of medications.  It is a small step, but bringing Healing Touch to people living around such darkness can spread light out not only to a class, but to all of the people that each student touches long after we are gone. 

We are committed to continue taking Healing Touch to South Africa and welcome others to get involved.  /We can use donations for syllabi, textbooks, equipment and even some support for CHTIs to travel.  We would welcome HT groups to connect as sister groups to HT groups forming in South Africa. 

There are so many ways to step up and make changes in our world. This project is just one way that you can be of service and help to stream the healing light to a place where it is so much needed.  I urge you to find your own way to serve and spread the gift of Healing Touch wherever you feel led around this weary world.  It is time for us to lead with a consciousness of unconditional love and a healing touch.