The devastating effects of the 2010 Yushu earthquake are a testament to the need for such a program. While immediate solutions were needed in order to keep people alive, restore, and rebuild communities; powerful leadership is also needed to envision and implement long term systemic changes that will ensure that such destruction cannot be repeated. In many ways, Yushu’s low quality infrastructure is the result of immense social inequity and years of disinvestment in the rural Tibetan community.  Finding solutions to these root problems is challenging, and the complex, difficult, and long term work of realizing social equity often becomes a lifetime commitment for those involved.

Understanding this, ShemUSA has designed the Visionary Leadership Program to support young Tibetan women who have demonstrated longstanding commitment to generating social equity in their communities.  The Visionary Leadership Program provides support for outstanding Tibetan women to pursue higher education in the field of their choice: giving them the flexibility and institutional support necessary to develop sustainable long-term approaches to the challenges of inequity.

The Visionary Leadership program complements and expands upon the small-scale project work that ShemUSA has supported thus far, making our work all the more effective in the long-term!