During 2000, the main target of the Buddha Darshan Club's thanka painting school project was to help raise the fund needed for reopening the school closed for some time due to management problems. We succeeded in achievling this goal, and the school was able to reopned its doors during December at long last with a highly qualified instructor hired for the classes.
In many ways, the last year's work was an up-hill job for all of us, partly because it was an effort to bring back the closed school to a fresh start, and fundraising was more difficult than expected. However, thanks to the effort of the Ryukoku University students and the contributions made by private citizens who rallied around the Kyoto Branch of the Virtual Foundation Japan, an important headstart was made, which in turn enabled the VFJ's Tokyo headquarters and the VFUSA to appeal to their friends who joined the donors in the western Japan.

In comparison, we have a much brighter outlook as we move into the year 2001. As already said in the preceding page, this year's project will consist of two distinct stages, the Step One and the Step Two, during the latter of period of which we have an ambitious plan of constructing and opening an "E-Bazaar" on the internet as a meeting place for urban dwellers and the people in the remote rural communities in the Asia-Pacific region. Our intention is, for example, to bring the thangka painting school students and theirown individual art work online and the Japanese viewers can send them their personal messages in Japanese (asking questions, naturally), which we will translate into English before delivered in Nepal via communication satellites. This way, people can become acquainted on personal level, and as a result, not only can learn from each other, but also go into transparent personal transactions if they want to purchase the art work from the young artists. All the costs in all segments shall be disclosed openly for everyone to see.

In order to complete the first and the second steps as explained in the previous page, our tentative cost estimate is around 10 thousand US dollars. And, we are happy to announce here that two wemen's organizations in Tokyo, the Kuge Embroidery led by Ms. Michiko Kuge, a nationally famous embroidery artist, and the members of the International Soroptimist Musashino of the Easstern Japan Region, affiliated with the Soroptimist International of Americas, have come out in support of VFJ's Nepal project donting a combined fund of 300 thousand Japanese yen. Thus, we alrady have made a significant progress toward the ultimate goal of our fundraising plan.

There will be a strategy meeting in Kyoto on February 24 with the private citizens who helped VFJ's Kyoto branch as donors last year. We fully expect to come up with a preliminary Nepal Project with its budget plan by the end of March, and we would like to ask you again to help raise the fund in time for the project implementation. If we can complete the project by the end of the summer, we are also talking about the possibility of organizing a Nepal tour by interested parties prominently including a visit to the art school. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested in any phase of our plans described at this web site.

E-Mail: Organizing Group of "E-Bazaar" as a meeting place for mutual trust and friendship
Tel: 042-381-7688
Fax; 042-381-7692

Yutaka Okamoto President and the Chairman of the Board The Virtual Foundation Japan