Vets Beyond Borders Australia

About the Bylakuppe Project

Volunteers veterinarians needed for the rest of 2012

End of Year, 2011 report

Come and join VBB on a unique South Indian project

Bylakuppe, the site of a major Tibetan Refugee resettlement, is a rural village in Karnataka, southern India. The refugee settlement consists of approximately 23 Tibetan camps/agricultural settlements, more than five major monasteries, and three schools for Tibetan children.  The local population is made up of Tibetan refugees whose population here is about 18,000 - the largest community of Tibetans outside of Tibet, and the largest such settlement in India.

About the Bylakuppe, Karnataka Project

Sera Datsang (or Monastery) is one of the world’s largest teaching institutions for Buddhism. Originally established in Lahasa, Tibet, the south Indian insitution was re-established in the early 1960s by refugees escaping China's invasion of Tibet. As well as providing comprehensive education, it houses and indirectly supports approximately 6000 Tibetan monks all all ages, many of whom have also come into exile in recent times from Tibet.

While a relatively small population of feral and semi-domestic or “community” dogs, live in the Monastery precinct (which could, in itself, be considered a self-contained town), many more live in the surrounding districts in Tibetan settlements and ‘camps’, and in the broader surrounds inhabited by the Indian population. This animal birth control anti-rabies (ABC-AR) programme, which addresses this problem, is run from within the Sera Monastery environs.

The project is a VBB partnership with the Sera Mey Social Services. It has surgical setups within the current human hospital/clinic facility called the H. Poiter Health Centre, located on the edge of the extensive Monastery grounds. The Centre has large area of maintained grounds large enough to accommodate shelters for dog recovery as well as a longer-term palliative care shelter should it be necessary (note - this is a no-kill project).

Also in this area is the public guesthouse, which provides the accommodation* for VBB volunteers and other visitors.The project location facility has good access to external boundaries of the monastery and to main road links with nearby towns and major regional centres such as Mysore and Bangalore (which is around five hours away by road).

Our thanks go to Fondation Brigitte Bardot for providing funding for this project, without which it would not be possible.

To find out more about volunteering for this project in 2012, please visit  Volunteering information for the Bylakuppe Programme or find more general volunteering information at Volunteering.

* IMPORTANT READING for prospective volunteers on this project -- PROTECTED AREA PERMITS

Please note that in order for foreign volunteers to stay overnight at the project site at the Sera Mey Guesthouse, they must have a Protected Area Permit (PAP) issued by the Indian Govt. On applying to VBB to volunteer on this project we will ask you to submit, as soon as possible, a scan of the signed application form for a PAP, which we will send you. At this point we will also request good quality scans of both your main passport page and of a separate passport photo to accompany the form.

While there is no fee for applying for a PAP, it takes some considerable time (usually around three months but can be up to 6 months) to be processed by authorities in Delhi. Hence, it’s essential that volunteers apply for the PAP for the intended period of visiting Bylakuppe as soon as approximate dates for a visit are confirmed (and even if you change your mind later). Once approved, the PAP needs to be validated at the start of your visit at the local Bylakuppe Police Station, who will also require a photocopy of the applicant’s main passport page, a photocopy of Indian visa, and three passport-sized photos.

We suggest therefore that if you are considering volunteering for this project and wish to stay onsite, that you give as much lead time as possible in order for the PAP to have been approved in advance.

Before your departure from your home country, please enquire if your PAP has been approved and we can advise accordingly and if you need to make alternative arrangements for your accommodation. If you arrive on the project and your PAP has not been approved, you will need to spend your evenings in accommodation outside of Bylakuppe, probably in Kushalnagar town where there is a range of accommodation that we advise to be booked online well before arriving to ensure availability.

Please note that this off-site accommodation will be at volunteers’ expense, as will the small amount it costs to travel (for about 10 minutes) in a local auto rickshaw to and from the project (which should be 60-80 rupees each way (price as at September 2011).  

Once the PAP is approved, however, and the project administrator is informed of this, volunteers will be assisted in the local processing of the document and given free accommodation at the guesthouse onsite at the Monastery in Bylakuppe.