The nomads way of life

The Tibetan nomads, who call themselves "drokpas", a big part of the population, mainly live on the central plateau, but also in the lower regions, especially in landscapes where their way of life makes sense, means where no agriculture is possible.

The central plateau with its average altitude of 4.000 - 5.000 m, it´s winterly temperatures of -35 degrees and a frozen ground for longer that 8 month, accomplishes those circumstances completely. The only possibility to survive is breeding yaks and sheep in a nomadic way of life. The bodies of these animals are completely used; the nutrition is based on yak-meat and butter, the tents are made by woven hair of yaks and the clothes are made of woven yak-hair and leather.

This ancient and perfectly close to nature way of life is seriously threatened by the policy of the Chinese government.

The nomads are pressed to leave their traditional living regions and driven to a settled way of life. The means to achieve this goal reach from direct force to enchaining meadows and forced selling of animals for little money. This policy leads to the result that the nomads live in low comfort houses with very little chances to get a regular job, because most of them don´t speak chinese.

Current medical conditions

Most of the drokpas live without any access to medical treatment, according to the fact that they have no doctors, nurses or midwives in their communities and the government clinics are much to expensive for their low incomes. Under those circumstances, combined with poor hygienic and sanitary conditions and malnutrition, their health level is generally low and leads to many diseases.

These facts are highly relevant for the 10.000 nomads in the region of Golok, who have no access to any medical treatment!