We believe you can change a whole community through pre-schooling. A good pre-school can help boost you from the bottom 20% of a class to the very top, according to work done in Britain (see story and report).

Imagine the difference for a Tibetan community with no school - compared to one with enthusiastic teachers, lots of books and good facilities. That's what we aim to provide. One of Help Tibet's first projects was in Tashi Palkhiel (map), which had only a goat shed for a school. We trained two pre-school teachers and built a real school, where the children can learn and play in the best environment.

Tashi Palkhiel kids used to share their classroom with goats	Good pre-schooling lifts & inspires an entire community

Help Tibet works to improve the quality of teaching and equipment in Tibetan schools. This means: refurbishing or building schools, providing teaching aids (including things liks jigsaws), training teachers and providing a decent and fun environment in which to learn. And as always, to help ensure the sustainability of a project, with a small financial contribution from the communities who benefit.

Kids play on new Help Tibet playground equipment at Jampaling (near Pokhara)	A classroom in Jampaling after the Help Tibet refurbishment.

Bad for learning: in Tserok, children once had to nap on the floor	Simple and inexpensive investments can hugely improve quality of life and learning

The best thing about education is that it isn't a one-off. When you train a teacher, you benefit every single child under his or her tutelage. On top of this, that teacher can train others to be better teachers. This is one of Help Tibet's key aims, which we started and continue to do with Tsering Yangzom. Tsering has inpsired a generation of young Tibetans and is passing her skills on to other teachers.

One problem facing refugees from Tibet is that school teachers often have not had time to finish even their own education or have proper training. This is why we work with people like Tsering and run an In Service Teacher Development Programme, in partnership with Preston College and Blackpool & Fylde Colleges. This has been running for over a decade.