Himalayan Consensus Projects

Discover the range of projects initiated by Himalayan Consensus.

Shambhala Palace restoration was undertaken by a team of Tibetan artisans and is arguably the most exquisite heritage preservation yet undertaken by Himalayan Consensus.
View Gallery

Shambhala Palace

As showcase models of geo-tourism, Shambhala Serai Himalayan Heritage Hotels offer guests an unforgettable life experience.
These are our Restoration Projects
Learn More

Historical Restoration

close
Each Shambhala Serai Heritage Hotel is a loving restoration of a historic building, and are located near sacred locations in Tibet. From 2005 to the present, each restoration has been completed by a team of fifty Tibetan artisan craftsmen. Guests stay in one-of-a-kind luxury while knowing that their stay is helping to preserve ethnic heritage and the environment, while directly benefiting the local community. All lanterns, bedspreads and pillow cases, and most other fixtures and decorations, used at the hotels are produced by women and disabled artisans supported through micro-enterprise programs operated by Himalayan Consensus. Shambhala Serai Heritage Hotels are true community efforts and reflect the pride of local residents in their own traditions and identities.

Shambhala at the Great Wall, located in Huairou, is the first ecological hotel in the region of Beijing.
View Gallery

Shambhala Great Wall

Shambhala Desert Dream restoration is currently under development and expected to open in spring 2011.
View Gallery

Shambhala Desert Dream

Shambhala Source is a geo-tourism project dedicated to protecting sacred Tibetan lands and hot springs through a program of sustainable development and cultural protection.
View Gallery

Shambhala Source

House of Shambhala offers a 360-degree panorama of Lhasa with spectacular views of the Potala Palace and the golden rooftops of the Jokang Temple.
View Gallery

House Of Shambhala

The Tara cafe serves organic coffee from Shangrila Farms, and is the base of product sales for our disabled artisan workshop. Click to see more images of this great location.
View Gallery

The Tara Cafe

Revival and sustainability of Tibetan artisan jewelry is part of ethnic identity.
Learn More

Tibetan Turquoise Revival

close
Stringing turquoise and designing traditional and new age Tibetan jewelry is one way of restoring local identity among indigenous people while confidence building through provision of skills with an economic foundation to ensure ongoing craft and community traditions within the Barkhor heritage district of Lhasa. But to ensure the sustainability, ongoing skill development is needed to empower locals to protect and preserve, moreover evolve their own local craft.

All the herbal ingredients are formulated by the Tashigang Monastery clinic and the monks of Drigung to produce incense.
Learn More

Incense Production Line

close
Originally the Incense Production Line was established in the monastery with the intention of producing incense to be bought back by Shambhala Serai group for use in spas and hotel rooms. Presently, spa users subsidize village medical care through its sales. All the herbal ingredients are formulated by the Tashigang Monastery clinic and the monks of Drigung to produce incense. The project became overwhelmingly successful in that all sales of incense went to the nearby village by popular demand.

Himalayan Consensus emphasizes empowering the disabled.
Learn More

Silent Yoga Training

close
Himalayan Consensus emphasizes empowering the disabled. The Shambhala Serai group has a spa and yoga centers in two locations, Lhasa and Terdrom . Rather than offering conventional yoga classes by instruction, the intention is to train deaf and mute to lead silent yoga classes, thereby empowering them with useful skill sets, self-pride, a place in society, and cultural re-enforcement of identity. Tibetan yoga techniques will be the centerpiece of the program emphasizing cultural sustainable development.

Using local herbs to create a local line of soaps and candles that represent the regional culture and can provide sustainable income through sale and export.
Learn More

Artisan Soap Making

close
Using local herbs to create a local line of soaps and candles that represent the regional culture and can provide sustainable income through sale and export. Himalayan Consensus is looking to start up this program with the help of donors who would like to help create a sustainable means of income that preserves culture.

A micro-enterprise with an all female mala bead making cooperative in Lhasa, Tibet, called the "Mala Bead Breakfast Club".
Learn More

Mala Bead Breakfast Club

close
Himalayan Consensus is dedicated to supporting initiatives for ethnic diversity and culturally sustainable development. The "Mala Bead Breakfast Club" is such an example. The program empowers a closely knit group of women living in the ancient Barkor section of old Lhasa to use existing skills and build upon a traditional craft, in turn evolving it into a sustainable business.

The concept involves empowering monks, monasteries and communities with the tools of their own sustainable health care and development embedded entirely within a Tibetan cultural context.
Learn More

Tashigang Medical Clinic

close
The program consists of four stages:

Restoring destroyed sections or buildings of a monastery.

Establishing a medical clinic within these buildings, training monks or nuns as paramedics to treat patients there.

Empowering them with medical skills of both Tibetan and western practice, opening a Tibetan medicine pharmacy which includes production using local herbs and mountain plants.

Expanding the facility to provide training for monks and nuns from other monasteries where Himalayan Consensus is establishing similar clinic facilities.

By offering medical services - for a fee reasonable and acceptable to the local community - the monastery could receive income and monks could double as medical service providers. The medical clinic provides the monastery with a source of sustainable revenue. Moreover, more pilgrims will visit the monastery because of the medical clinic further sustaining and supporting their culture.

Nomads Boutique reflects a unique alternative style fusing hip emotive sensuality with Tibet’s rich nomad heritage.
View Gallery

Tibetan Textile Revival

The spa progresses mental and holistic wellness concepts through a program reviving Tibetan yoga.
Learn More

Tibetan Tantric Spa

close
The spa progresses mental and holistic wellness concepts through a program reviving Tibetan yoga, meditation techniques, and working with mountain communities and monks to revive Himalayan herbal cures and fusing them into modern new age spa products. Guests may bathe in the Naga Pool where these serpentine female spirits trickle water from conch shells into a pool fragrant with Tibetan healing medicine and a touch of sacred water blessed daily at nearby monasteries. Massage by specially trained Tibetans is in a separate double room lit with candles in wall alcoves and dominated by a mural charting the chakra points of the body. All spa oils, baths, fragrances and incense are specially produced by handicapped Tibetans at the Jatson School in Lhasa or by a Kathmandu NGO, Wild Earth, which works with marginalized Nepalese mountain communities.

Eliminating needless blindness on the roof of the world.
Learn More

Let The People See

close
Himalayan Consensus also extends its aid to Tibetan communities in the form of health-oriented action initiatives, with efforts and the generous support of other groups and individuals that have resulted in clinics, eye camps, and other medical facilities. These provide competent, quality health care for the locals in need of medical attention. Himalayan Consensus is in partnership with Seva, an NGO based in Berkley California that is dedicated to providing eye care services for the marginalized and underprivileged who cannot afford them. It has branches throughout the Himalayan region in Asia and in Central-South America. Seva has been working in Tibet since 1995 and to date has helped more than 28,500 blind eyes to see again. Seva is the leading eye care provider in Tibet, responsible for 50% of cataract surgeries in the TAR and 90% in Sichuan province. Seva’s goal is to build the capacity of local Tibetan eye care personnel to prevent blindness and provide over 5,000 sigh restoring surgeries annually.

Himalayan Consensus launched its first mobile medical clinic to treat highland nomads in Qinghai Province.
Learn More

Reaching Out To Nomads

close
The mobile clinic spends up to 2 weeks in any one highland area. They operate by one larger ambulance jeep remaining stationary in a nomad camp, while the other jeep sweeps a wider area, serving still more remote nomads, bringing back critical cases while treating others on site. An independent survey of the mobile clinic found that five to six people were being treated and saved each day, underscoring how a little support can go a long way toward changing and even saving lives. There is a serious shortage of trained medical doctors able to access patients in remote parts of Qinghai where basic health care is almost non-existent. Most communities rely on traditional Tibetan medicine, which is effective for treating many long-term ailments but has shortcomings on serious and sudden health threats.

Himalayan Consensus funds the only free Montessori School in Lhasa.
Learn More

Give the Children a Chance

close
Himalayan Consensus works with locals on the ground and partner NGOs to build and maintain a Montessori school in Tibet. Children learn and grow in a creative and progressive learning environment, and teachers receive modern and comprehensive training from Montessori Beijing.

Revival and sustainability of Tibetan artisan jewelry is part of ethnic identity.
Learn More

Save Tibetan Tiger Rugs

close
Himalayan Consensus micro-enterprise program launched "Save the Tibetan Tiger Rug", an action initiative intended to achieve the following goals:

Revive traditional rug weaving and dying techniques to keep them alive in the old heritage section of Lhasa.

Empower disenfranchised women with skills, employment, sense of self-respect and cultural identity within a community.

Send a strong environmental message through the example of tiger rug revival.

Serve as an example of evolving traditional crafts as part of cultural sustainable development.

One particular village in Drigung is famed for its red soil. Historically, the families of the village produced pottery that was primarily used for distilling Tibetan liquor.
Learn More

Pottery Revival in Drigung

close
One particular village in Drigung is famed for its red soil. Historically, the families of the village produced pottery that was primarily used for distilling Tibetan liquor. Since 2006, Shambhala Serai group began to identify the few remaining families who still retain this pottery making skill set and began to support their continued artisan skill by suggesting prototypes of dishware, tea and coffee cups to be produced by hand. To this day all Shambhala Serai dishware and cups are produced in this village and we would like to expand the program to develop a wider selection of products to sustain this indigenous craft.

Who we are

Himalayan Consensus is a new paradigm for sustainable economic development that seeks practical community-based solutions, draws upon values indigenous to the Himalayan region, and emphasizes ethnic identity and economic empowerment.

What we do

Himalayan Consensus is an organization which promotes ethnic diversity, cultural preservation, and environmental protection through historical restoration projects and Consensus Community membership. Shambhala Serai is a group of heritage hotels, which is our flagship Consensus Community that serves as a base for the revival of local traditions and customs, such as Turquoise Jewelry Revival, Tibetan Tiger Rug-weaving, and Mala Beads. Each of these micro-enterprises creates a sustainable business for local Tibetans and adds to our Consensus Communities.

How we work

Himalayan Consensus works closely with environmental and development experts. Every Consensus Community receives media exposure for all projects and adds another voice to our grassroots, bottom up development paradigm. Shambhala Serai projects in partnership with other Consensus Communities in the region band together under Himalayan Consensus to stir a global movement of social justice. Additionally, we bring awareness to the serious issue of climate change which most immediately affects 18 countries in the surrounding region from our Glacial Watch specialists.