STORY BY KENNETH GUILLAUME

ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE CARLYLE

Walking through the capital city of Nepal, at the base of the Himalayas, Tenzin and his mother passed the growing population of the homeless and his mother distilled one value he has carried with him that shaped his drive. 

“They’re the same as you,” Tenzin said, remembering what his mother would say as they walked to the Buddist Stupa, or religious structure used for meditation. 

Tenzin Tsundu, from Kathmandu, Nepal, has focused his professional life in helping the most vulnerable people in his community. Whether it be in Nepal, India or Poughkeepsie, Tenzin strives to help educate and provide people a sense of community.

The lineage of his family, nomads and farmers across India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet, made Tenzin question his own self of identity geographically at an early age. “Growing up I didn't feel an affinity to any one of those, I loved all my cultures,” he said. 

This shaped Tenzin to accept the various cultures that can live within the borders of a country, shaping him to be open-minded throughout his childhood and adult life. 

Throughout high school, Tenzin had envisioned traveling and volunteering; by the time he graduated, this had not come to fruition yet. He wanted to set out and accomplish this before moving onto the next chapter in his life, and he did it in a “running away from home” way. “I went to my mom, I carried a bag and I said, ‘Mom, I’m leaving.’” After some questioning by his mother, he was unwavering in his drive to explore and find a path suitable to him. 

Leaving his home country of Nepal, he moved to Bhutan and stayed with family, but the goals he wanted to set out to accomplish still didn’t manifest. “I had this thought, like okay, what do I want to do in life. My major thing was I want to help the most vulnerable people in my community. That was my purpose,” Tenzin said.  

Tenzin wanted to find a life plan, so to speak, and that’s what he did. However it wasn’t going to happen in Bhutan, so he went back to his community in Nepal. 

“I started working in grassroots NGOs. At first I started teaching English, so I would go from village to village, teach English, and stuff like that,” Tenzin said. 

Following that experience, Tenzin moved to an NGO that directly matched his goals he had realized while in Bhutan. “I started working for this NGO called Hope and Challenge,” Tenzin said. “The funny thing was their mission statement was to alleviate the suffering of the most vulnerable people in their community. So that really coincided with what I wanted to do.” 

Eventually this led to Tenzin finding himself travelling throughout Nepal in a truck during the dead of night to deliver resources that would benefit the local disadvantaged in whatever city or village they had arrived at by daybreak. 

One day while sleeping in the frigid cold on this mission to alleviate the suffering of others, Tenzin was woken up by his supervisor at five in the morning to distribute blankets to the local homeless on the streets. 

With little energy and merely a blanket to keep warm, Tenzin’s drive was at an all time low. His supervisor said something that will stick with Tenzin for the rest of his life, “You’re a human being right? Human beings are not made to feel comfortable, feel nice and feel warm. If you’re meant to do that then you’re okay. But human beings, they’re meant to fill a purpose. Our purpose and our purpose right now is to help people and they are waiting for us to distribute blankets, and you should wake up,” Tenzin recalled his supervisor saying.