After five incredible and action packed years, Rinchoe Choedon has stepped down as National Director of SFT India. Rinchoe has spent 10+ years inspiring and training the next generation of Tibet activists. From her college days as an SFT chapter leader to leading hard hitting campaigns with the SFT India team, Rinchoe’s impact and efforts with SFT are self-evident, especially in the young people she has mentored across India and around the world.
During her time as National Director of SFT India, Rinchoe navigated the team through the challenges of a global pandemic and discovered strategic and innovative ways to continue amplifying the plight of Tibetans inside Tibet. India has the most Tibetan refugees in the world, and at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the SFT India team led an enormous effort to deliver Covid-19 toolkits to thousands of Tibetan families in need.
We are grateful to Rinchoe for sharing her indomitable passion and many talents with SFT for over a decade. As Rinchoe’s time as National Director of SFT India has come to a close, please celebrate and share in our gratitude for her valuable contributions to SFT.
To continue the essential work of SFT India, we would like to announce the vacancy for the post of National Director. For more information please visit the SFT India website or follow the link in @SFTIndia’s bio.
Campaigns
Learn about our hard-hitting human rights, political, economic, environmental, and socio-cultural campaigns aimed at gaining successes for Tibetans inside Tibet, and raising the costs of occupation for the Chinese government.
Programs
At SFT-India we organize a range of programs including youth leadership trainings to empower Tibetan and Indian young people to become effective change-makers, and outreach programs to introduce Indian and other non-Tibetan youth to the Tibetan freedom movement.
Colaborative
we give as much importance to the collaboration works and action to generate our common goal.
All the civil society that share common goal and combine our strength by fighting together in collaboration is fundamental key to reach targeted goal and stand against any human rights violation.
Get Involved
From hosting talks by researchers, authors, filmmakers and activists, to rapid response awareness and solidarity actions, to candlelight vigils, weekly film screenings, and grassroots street actions, we keep ourselves busy and on our feet the whole year round!
EVENTS
29 - 2
May - June
2023
LITTLE LHASA PROGRAM
- Place McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala
- Time 9:30 AM
(Travel with purpose) SFT-India organized a “Little Lhasa Program” providing opportunities for students all across the world to explore Tibet’s political condition, its unique culture, heritage and history of Dharamshala. During the one week course, participants get an opportunity to engage with Tibetan activists, leaders and former political prisoners and visit places like Norbulingka, Dalai Lama’s temple, Nechung monastery, Tibetan government in exile, Library of Tibetan works and archives and Tibetan Children’s Village school. Registration fee : RS 1500/-
REGISTER!25
April
2023
Panchen Lama Birthday
- Place McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala
- Time 10:00 AM
Gendun Choekyi Nyima was kidnapped by the Chinese authorities just 2 months after he was officially recognized in 1995 as the 11th Panchen Lama, one of Tibet’s most important religious leaders. He and his family have been held under house arrest ever since.
Click to see more4
June
2023
Tiananmen Square Massacre
- Place McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala
- Time 11:00 AM
After three decades, we still stand here as proof of the CCP’s brutality toward the people who ask for democracy. However, people still commemorate this symbolic day all around the world as a testimony to the fact that no matter how much the CCP tries to censor, erase and rewrite history of the bloody massacre, they’re never going to succeed
Click to see more13
February
2023
Tibetan Independence Day
- Place McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala
- Time 11.00 AM
Every country marks significant historical dates in its founding as a nation. Regardless of its current political status, Tibet is no exception and Students for a Free Tibet has set aside February 13th as an important day to commemorate Tibet’s independent past. In occupied countries, observing independence day is a powerful expression of a people’s desire for freedom.
Click to see more10
March
2023
Tibetan National Uprising Day
- Place McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala
- Time 11.00 AM
March 10th is one of the most historically significant days representing the Tibetan people’s aspirations for freedom from Chinese government rule. Join Us: Protest March at 11:00AM, From Dalai Lama Temple, McLeodGanj to Police ground,Dharamshala 10th March, 2019. གསུམ་བཅུའི་དུས་དྲན་ཐེངས་ ༦༠ པའི་ཉིན་བཞུགས་སྒར་ཐེགས་ཆེན་ཆོས་གླིང་གཙུག་ལག་ཁང་ནས་རྡ་ཤོད་ཀ་ཅ་རི་ཉེན་རྟོགས་ཐང་ཆེན་བར་སྐད་འབོད་གོ་སྒྲིག་ཞུ་རྒྱུ་ལགས་པས། བཞུགས་སྒར་གནས་བཞུགས་སེར་སྐྱ་མི་མང་ལྷན་རྒྱས་ངེས་ཕེབས་ཡོང་བ་ཞུ།
10
december
2022
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Place McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala
- Time 11:00 AM
10th December is opportunity to reaffirm the importance of human rights in rebuilding the world we want, the need of global solidarity as well as interconnectedness and shared humanity. SFT is committed to promote and advance human rights and democracy in Tibet and exiled Tibetan Community by empowering Tibetan Human Rights by campaigning against Human Rights Abuse.
Frequently asked questions
01.
How does SFT work?
SFT is a grassroots organization where chapters play a pivotal role in spreading awareness on our campaigns and the Tibet movement. An SFT chapter works the same way other groups and clubs at your school or college. How you setup your chapter is based largely on the needs of your members. Some chapters elect Chapter Coordinator, Secretaries, Treasurers, etc., and other chapters are less formal in their administration. There is no minimum or maximum number of members you can have in your chapter- some of our chapters have 5 members, while others have over 100!
02.
Does the SFT-India Office run Students for a Free Tibet?
No! YOU do! SFT is a student-run organization. We have full-time staff who communicate with the chapters to get feedback and take input on what you want SFT to be doing. Everyone in SFT has a voice, and we encourage all of our members to speak up.
03.
How much do I have to know about Tibet?
You will want to know at least the basic history of Tibet as well as the current situation in Tibet today. Don’t worry if you don’t know all of that yet! We will provide you with a lot of information to get you started, and you can get info on this site, where we have links to many other informative resources.
04.
What if I don't have time to work on everything?
Don't stress out about having to work on too many things! School should be your first priority—no exceptions. Do the things that you want to do, that you feel comfortable doing, and that work with your schedule. The main thing is to be positive, and remember that this should be fun and inspiring for you and your chapter members.
05
What will I get out of this?
We at SFT believe that each student has the potential to be a leader and we work hard through our youth leadership trainings to harness your skills so that YOU become an agent of change. You acquire leadership skills, as well as public speaking, strategizing, campaigning and fundraising. Most importantly, you get the satisfaction of helping millions of Tibetans who need your support more than ever!
06.
Can an Indian Student start SFT-Chapter?
Yes, they can! We have a lot of Indian members and not only have they started chapters, they have led the movement, revived old chapters and have been with us every step of the way. More power to you!
Meet the team
Tenzin Phakdon
Development Director
Tenzin Lekdhen
Campaigns Director
Lobsang Dhondup
Dharamshala Store Manager
Lekyi Khandu
Delhi Store Manager