105% Success!
December 23, 2014
Ladakh's Ice Stupa Project Exceeds Crowd-Funding Target
This is to thank each and every one of you who participated in this unique crowd-funding campaign to support climate change adaptation in the Himalayas. Here is a press release we sent out today:
Leh, December 23:
Phyang Monastery and SECMOL Alternative School’s ambitious Ice Stupa Project today announced that it had exceeded its $119,500 target on the American crowd funding platform Indiegogo. Over $1,25,000 (Rs. 75 lakh) was raised as part of the campaign.
The Ice Stupa team thanked all its donors and supporters worldwide. Pan India Paryatan Pvt Ltd, the group that runs India’s largest entertainment theme parks Esselworld and Water Kingdom, matched contributions totaling about $47,000 on the crowd-funding site.
This project was guided and supported by His Holiness Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpochey, who wishes to green the Phyang desert under the Go Green Go Organic movement. The funds raised will go into the official accounts of Phyang monastery and will be spent on greening the desert of Phyang.
The Ice Stupa Artificial Glacier Project is being built in Phyang village in Ladakh, as part of a collaborative effort to conserve water and battle climate change. The project was formally launched by the Governor and J&K State Shri NN Vohra in an international conference on climate change in Jammu University in October this year.
330 contributors from 31 countries across the globe raised a total of $125,200 (105% of the goal) at the close of the campaign today, the 23rd December. Contributions ranged from $5 to $5000 and above. Out of 330 contributors,10 people donated over $5000. India accounted for 35% of the contribution, the largest contribution by country.
About the Ice Stupa Project: Engineers and volunteers along with the villagers and monks of Phyang have this winter commenced on a project to build a series of artificial glaciers, or ice stupas each 12 stories high and with a capacity to hold 16 million litres of water. The water from these ice stupas is expected to help the villagers in the crucial planting months of April and May apart from helping them green a vast patch of desert. Once this project is scaled up, these Ice Stupas are expected to hold enough water to green 1500 acres of hard desert land.
Here the people of Phyang, the monks and HH Kyabgon Rinpochey thank you all.