Immediately after its founding in 2005, Shambhala began launching a series of action initiatives, including:

“Tibet Micro-equity”, an economically sustainable means of helping Tibetans preserves their culture through artisan communes;

“Give the Children a Chance”, a progressive education program and model for rural communities; and, “Himalayan Action for Health”, a breakthrough approach to rural healthcare that involves establishing clinics in monasteries, training monks and nuns as paramedics, fighting blindness, and developing holistic medical products.

Today, Shambhala’s Action Initiatives have grown to include the following programs:

Under “Tibet Micro-Equity”

• The Mala Bead Breakfast Club, which allows Tibetan nuns to supplement their income by creating beautiful strings of prayer beads as they recite their daily mantras. As an added bonus, these mala beads can also be used as fashion accessories, worn as necklaces, bracelets, or charms around bag straps
• The Tibetan Turquoise Revival, a jewelry artisan commune that re-empowers Tibetans by providing them with a venue to design and create their own jewelry and, ultimately, to reclaim a rich history of jewelry-making
• The Save the Tibetan Tiger Initiative, which seeks to revive Tibetan tiger rug-making (originally developed as a replacement art to help save the Himalayan tiger) and traditional carpet weaving using holistic natural dyes and wool. Along the way, the initiative empowers rural women and supports sheepherding and traditional lifestyles
• The Children’s Initiative, which creatively empowers handicapped Tibetans by allowing them to produce Tibetan animal hand puppets to accompany a storybook meant to raise children’s awareness of the importance of biodiversity and the role each animal plays in supporting a healthy environment
  

Under “Give the Children a Chance”

• The establishment of a Kindergarten, which provides free education to more than a hundred children living in impoverished situations in rural Tibet
• The introduction of Montessori methods merged with traditional teaching systems and the training of Tibetan teachers in these methods

Under “Himalayan Action for Health”

• The establishment of clinics within monasteries and the empowerment of monks and nuns by training them as paramedics so they can serve in these clinics
• The revival of traditional Tibetan medical practices within monasteries, which promote a more holistic approach to health than Western medicine
• The establishment of mobile medical clinics as a means of reaching out to nomadic groups
• The establishment of Shambhala Tibetan Tantric Spa and Yoga Center to promote holistic preventive health care through yoga and mediation
• The development of Tibetan Tantric Spa products to promote holistic preventive health care and offset village level outreach in monastery clinics, all the while promoting research of herbal medicines by monks
• “Let the People See”, which sets up fundraising campaigns for combating blindness on the Himalayan plateau
  
  Shambhala's micro-equity projects are inspired by the micro-credit model pionered by Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed Yunus. They differ, however, in that Shambhala invests in people rather than lending to them, becoming itself a stakeholder in their future efforts.
  

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