Our Social Contributions

Demonstrating a well-developed sense of corporate social responsibility, Tibetan Handicraft and Paper Pvt. Ltd. has taken up the following initiatives: We educate the children of our Tibetan Handicraft factory workers for free at Samten Memorial Educational Academy. We also provide scholarship opportunities for other students in need. There are currently 410 students at the school and 24 staff employed full time In 2010 we donated Rs. 475,000 for the construction of a road to Barahibise Thingsang, Bigu, and Chilangkha Dolakha Districts, and in 2015 we donated again, Rs. 232,155, to maintain the road. Over 30,000 people from several villages including Bigu, Alamphu, Chilangkha, and Khopa Chaggu benefit from the increased access to markets and other infrastructure that the road provides. The new road supports marketing of stone slates from Alamphu and organic potatoes and vegetables from Bigu After the earthquake that shook Nepal in 2015, Tibetan Handicraft & Paper employees lost homes and resources. With the help of one German Client and associated NGO Himalayan Region Welfare, we provided Rs. 33,000 to each of our 91 employees in Kathmandu to get roofs over their heads, buy food and take care of their families A variety of top-quality lokta paper products

A Broad Base

Tibetan Handicraft & Paper supports community-based development: it has purchased shares in local enterprises including community forest users’ groups Dolkha Sindhu Multipurpose Pvt. Ltd. and Everest Gateway Pvt. Ltd.. We sign annual purchase agreements with each organization. Currently over 1000 members around Nepal benefit directly from the purchasing of paper from communities where it is produced as do our nearly 100 employees at the Kathmandu factory. We provide fair living wages, and working conditions are excellent for all employees. We hire people who are drawn from a cross-section of Nepal’s many ethnic groups, giving special consideration to the poorest. As the founders of the company are Sherpa, we do our best to highlight Sherpa/Tibetan culture by selling products like prayer flags, incense, singing bowls, and thingsa (miniature cymbals). We print paper with typical icons like the bodhi leaf of the peepul tree (Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha was enlightened under a peepul tree), the lotus, mandalas, and the all-seeing eyes of Lord Buddha. We also promote papermaking by conducting training programmes in Nepal and as far abroad as America and orphanages in Tibet. To attain environmentally sound practices, we use vegetable dyes and dip-dye processes that absorb all chemical dyes, which are ozone and chlorine-free. Each lokta plant, whose bark is the base for our products, has the astonishing ability to send up many new stems after being harvested for production. A few years after harvest, what was one lokta plant will be five or six new plants. In addition, waste is minimal since all rejected products are recycled. The company is now doing research into the use of agricultural waste, including banana leaves, cardamom stalks and rice husks for paper production. We are also exploring the possibility of using other plants like hemp and mitsumata (Japanese for Edgeworthia chrysantha) to make our paper.