Occasionally we also have staged live events on a Tibetan theme, or by Tibetan performers. A very popular example was the performance, to a packed house, of Tibetan ritual dancing by the Tashilhunpo monks.
Local musicians have also contributed by way of staging concerts dedicated to Tibet. Some of these have been in well-known venues like the Lemon Tree. Somewhat further-afield was performance by folk/bluegrass band Moonshine Madness at Letterfourie, a traditional Scottish stately house in Banffshire.
The money raised by these activities goes to various projects. These
can be divided into two principal areas; projects which seek to bring a
solution to Tibet's political problems, such as Free Tibet Campaign,
and those which provide aid to Tibetan communites in need of the basics
of civilised life such fresh water, food and education.
Of the latter, some aid goes to the community of Tibetans-in-exile at Dharamsala, India. While (thanks to the generosity of India in providing sanctuary) none here are on the poverty-line, there is still a pressing need for resources such as school buildings to provide an education for the children of the refugees.
Some aid is also allowed (by the Chinese) to go into Tibet itself, and in this case is typically to provide the poorer villages in rural Tibet with the likes of clean drinking water, or medical supplies. Many of these outlying areas -always subsistence zones even before the invasion- have suffered extreme hardship since the Communist takeover. your aid has made a real difference to the quality of life in these villages, by providign those basics like clean water and serviceable clothing which we take for granted.
A further are in which aid has been very effective is in the provision of livestock to Tibetan smallholders. With the failur of the Communist farming policies many Tibetans are left without livestock, and the Yak for Life campaign has made a significant effort to redress that situation, by providing yaks (the Tibetan equivalent of our domestic cow) the smaller farms and nomadic groups who are herdless.
We're often asked on the street why we collect for Tibet, and not for a local cause. Simple fact is we here may have our gripes but nione of us has the slightest notion of the extent of poverty in a place like Tibet, a marginal land which requires careful resource-menagement if it is to be a viable habitat, and which has been subjected to half-a-century of misguided and idealistic Chinese dogma on farming methods, leading to widespread failure of the traditional subsistence farming.
Owing to the difference in the value of money between here and India or Tibet, a contribution of even few pounds can do a lot more than you might think.