On a remote mountaintop of the Himalayas sits Jhamtse Gatsal (Tibetan for “The Garden of Love and Compassion”), a special school and home for 85 abandoned and neglected children.
Eight years ago Buddhist monk Lobsang Phuntsok, hand-picked by the Dalai Lama to share Tibetan Buddhism with the West, felt called to leave a life as a spiritual teacher in the US and return to the region of his birth to try and rescue children from suffering. Since then he has created a unique community in the foothills of the Himalayas called Jhamtse Gatsal (Tibetan for ‘The Garden of Love and Compassion’), which provides a permanent home for 85 orphaned or abandoned children all learning to live compassionately.
Lobsang has channeled his own unhappy childhood into an opportunity for these ‘uninvited guests of the universe’ to avoid a similar fate. Driven by a longing to experience being part of a family, he has become for the children at Jhamtse Gatsal something he never had – a father.
Winner Outstanding Short Documentary Emmy 2016 and 25 Film Festival Awards
