Icy Stupa

Long time blogging friend AUSTERE has sent an email last week, and I want to let my venerated readers know what she has to say about a very interesting initiative in Ladakh.

*

I recently volunteered at an alternative institute, SECMOL in Ladakh (Ger., Eng.) for 3 weeks.
SECMOL is largely independent, a prime example of eco-friendly sustainable living, with self-sufficient solar energy, solar heating, own source of water, organic farming, etc.  The setting is beautiful — on a cliff above the Indus, surrounded by towering mountains.

I’d like to share a water conservation project, The Ice Stupa Project, that SECMOL is working on, along with the monks from the renowned Phyang monastery (Eng.).
HH Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpochey (one of the highest incarnate Lamas) is actively supporting this project.

Towering Ice stupas, conical artificial glaciers of about 12 storey height, will be built to conserve water for the time when it is needed the most. Villagers will be able to take an extra crop. This field of glaciers will be created using gravity and school-level science, that water finds its own level.
This project is being funded using crowdfunding on Indiegogo, and I actively seek your support for this :

Here is the link.

*

AUSTERE included an email  from the founder of SECMOL,
Sonam WANGCHUCK :

*

I am writing this email to let you know that the much awaited “Ice Stupa Artificial Glacier” project is now launched on indiegogo.com. I hope you will like the idea and support it.

Please don’t feel compelled if you are not in a position to contribute financially now, you can contribute by sharing this idea with your friends, relatives and the media. It’s as much an Education Campaign as it is a Fund Raising Campaign.

You can either forward this email to friends with a note of introduction or post it on social media sites, although studies show that email has the best success rate.

However if you do want to make a contribution then this is the right time. Studies also show that most successful projects on crowd-funding platforms collect up to 30% of the target in the first 3 days.  It is said that this attracts and encourages other unknown potential contributors and the media (which then helps in the snowballing effect) . It also raises the ranking of the project (called GoGo factor) on the Indiegogo site which helps a lot in promoting a project.

Luckily we seem to be not too far away from this rate, since today, on the third day it has reached 11%.of the target amount.

So whether it is sharing the news or contribution … earlier the better.

Here is the link to the site that has a short film and all details :

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ice-stupa-artificial-glaciers-of-ladakh/x/8841831

Best wishes and many thanks for your support

Sonam Wangchuk

*

So let’s hope that the attention this site gets for nothing is turned into something useful in Ladakh.

Thank You for having a look at this project, thank You for letting me know, AUSTERE.