Contact Stories
Here we bring you the stories of the people who have made Contact happen over the years, and watch this space for details of any future projects!
Editorial: A Pleasure and a Privilege
Putting together this last issue of Contact has been full of joy as well as nostalgia. We thought we would celebrate by bringing you the story of Contact as told by some of the people who have made it happen over this last 25 years. As the contributions have come read more →
The story of Contact
Contact was born in 1997, the brainchild of Dara, Mark and Scarth, who owned and ran the Khana Nirvana restaurant with friends from America. Rabsel, a local Tibetan, worked with them and together they came up with the idea of producing Contact as the Dharamshala Community Publication after holding several read more →
Early Years of Contact Magic
Nothing has ever changed my life more than the time I spent in McLeod Ganj. As the third partner in the service project known as the Dharamsala Earthville Institute (DEVI), the home of Khana Nirvana Community Café, I lived and worked in the cafe with a growing team of Tibetan read more →
Life’s Greatest Experience
Working with Contact and Lha, I have learnt about the world from people from different cultural backgrounds across the world. Learning about their culture, tradition and different lifestyles; my awareness of the world view has expanded in such a way that I believe I wouldn’t get that exposure and learning read more →
Bigger Than Any One of Us
Mark Moore, Dara Ackerman, Dave Bloom, and I opened up the Khana Nirvana restaurant around the time of Losar of 1997 with the hope of creating a space where you could find good, safe vegetarian and vegan food and learn about how to get and stay connected to the local read more →
Mixed Feelings – and New Challenges
I started working at Lha Charitable Trust as the office secretary in 2014 and Contact magazine was one of the biggest of Lha’s projects at that time. I had the opportunity to write several articles for the magazine and also my own story under the People category. Contact magazine has read more →
An Unforgettable Experience
It is my great pleasure to congratulate you on the 25-year celebration of Contact magazine. This celebration gives me joy and sorrow because Contact magazine is the only long-time free monthly publication English magazine in the exile Tibetan community with Information and Broadcasting registration with the government of India, and read more →
A Significant Role
The first time I saw a copy of Contact magazine was at the Tibet Museum in Mcleod Ganj, and I remember thinking that the magazine was educational about Tibet’s current situation and informative about the local Tibetan community in Dharamshala. At that time, I knew nothing about Lha Charitable Trust read more →
Jampa Tsering and Neil Guidry, the founders of Lha Charitable Trust
On this 25-year anniversary of both Contact magazine and Lha Charitable Trust (Lha), we THANK YOU! All the good thoughts, encouragement, good works and support over the years have been fuel for us to grow and serve for a quarter of a century. Thousands of volunteers from more than 50 read more →
Fun and Interesting People
I edited Contact for a few months in 2012 when it was first taken over by Lha. I got into editing for Contact because I was drawn to Tibetan culture and curious about how the Tibetan refugee community lived and functioned from day to day in northern India. It meant read more →