Tibet House facts for kids

Tibet House Building in Lodhi Road, New Delhi, India

Tibet House is an international, loosely affiliated group of nonprofit, cultural preservation organizations founded at the request of the Dalai Lama to preserve, present and protect Tibet's ancient traditions of philosophy, mind science, art, and culture due to the Chinese "invasion of Tibet in 1950" and subsequent Tibetan diaspora. The first Tibet House was founded in New Delhi, India in 1965.

The Tibet House in New York City

Tibet Houses include:

• Tibet House, in New Delhi, India founded in 1965, tulkus Gelek Rimpoche and Dagyab Kyabgoen Rinpoche were early directors;
• Tibet House Japan, founded in 1975 in Shinjuku, Tokyo;
• Tibet House US was founded in 1987 by scholar Robert Thurman, actor Richard Gere and composer Philip Glass in downtown Manhattan, New York City: Menla, a retreat space located in the Catskills near Phoenicia, New York, is an offshoot of Tibet House US. The project was spearheaded by Robert Thurman and Nena Thurman.  
• Casa Tibet México, founded in 1989 in Mexico City;
• Casa del Tibet Barcelona, founded in 1994 in Spain;
• Tibet House Trust, founded in 1994 in London, England;
• Tibethaus Germany, founded by Spiritual Director Dagyab Kyabgoen Rinpoche in 2005, in Frankfurt; and
• Tibet House Moscow, founded in 2004 in Russia.

Its stated purpose, as taken from the Tibet House US website:

• To present to the West Tibet's ancient traditions of art and culture by means of creating a permanent Cultural Center, with Gallery, Library, and Archives, and developing traveling exhibitions, print publications and media productions
• To preserve and restore Tibet's unique cultural and spiritual heritage, by means of developing a Repatriation Collection for future repatriation of outstanding examples of Tibetan art, creating an archive of rare photographs, opening a research library, making a Web site on the Internet for the wide distribution of information, and providing support to conservation activities both inside and outside of Tibet
• To share with the world Tibet's practical systems of spiritual philosophy and mind sciences, and its arts of human development, intercultural dialogues, nonviolence, and peacemaking, by means of innovative programs in cooperation with educational and other cultural institutions.