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 in, those memories and reflections of the people who have been involved over the years, I have been moved and humbled and inspired all at once to see how Contact has affected all our lives, and how our little magazine has enabled people to make wonderful and sometimes lifelong connections.
And we, the Contact team would like to bid you, our readers, a very personal farewell. We are proud and pleased to have shared this journey with you and we want to thank you for being with us all the way. Whether online or in print, your thoughts, comments and feedback have inspired and encouraged us. There is always an excitement every month when the magazine arrives from the printers and the whole Lha team gathers to pack them up for posting; many of your names are familiar to us and we think of you as Contact arrives in your homes around the world, bringing you the news. It’s a wonderful connection.
And connection is what it’s all about for me as I hang up my own personal hat after 10 years as your editor. The Contact team centres around the Lha office in Dharamshala with the Lha staff team and the volunteers from every corner of the earth who arrive and connect with us. Some come to write for us because they want to support the Tibetan cause, some have never heard of the issues, and through writing for Contact, learn and become involved, and then go home and they remember, and so the movement grows. Hundreds of people have written for us over the years and some of them share their stories with us here.
Bringing you Contact every month involves so much more than the writers – a huge accolade to the two dedicated English volunteers who have proofread every issue for years. In my early days one of our volunteers asked a friend of hers – a features editor for a national daily paper – to give Contact the once over; her feedback was invaluable and at her suggestion our People stories were born – the People stories have been one of my greatest pleasures. Our occasional guest editors have kept us fresh, see Charlotte’s and Kate’s stories Kate expresses exactly the value and joy of the printed magazine. Those guest editors gave me a very welcome break as I went offline into the far corners of the world every now and again! And we couldn’t have done it without our printer and our funder. Two very special volunteers, Mark and Ben, were with us in Dharamshala during the pandemic and brought you the news online every day right through those long months of lockdown.
And of course the people it’s so easy to overlook are those heroes who fix our website, which we take so much for granted, and which is a complete mystery to most of us! They often step in at short notice, manage the impossible and enable us to bring you the news, up to date and accessible, and looking beautiful. Thank you!
A particular and heartfelt mention goes to all those unsung heroes – the people at home who encourage and support us. One of those is Jamphel, our current editor Samten’s partner who, among his many, many contributions, put together this issue’s front page.
I work from my home in England, or from the Lha office, or wherever I happen to be in the world, working online with our editor in the office who also recruits the volunteers and does the painstaking layout work. I produced the magazine together for 15 months before we even clapped eyes on each other! And Samten and I have worked together for seven years in almost daily contact with each other – it’s been such a pleasure! But there is absolutely no point in producing a magazine without distributors, and no way it can be produced without advertisers bringing in revenue.
And my personal moments? Being one of the Lha “family” has been a delight. Sitting in a McLeod restaurant seeing a western woman pick up Contact and read her way through it, cover to cover; when I said hello she told me she read it every month. In a packed rooftop restaurant, local Tibetans sitting round every table, every one absorbed in reading Contact.
Now that we will no longer bring you daily news updates, if you look inside the back cover you will find websites to keep you up to date. And please do keep up to date, keep informed, keep protesting, keep up the pressure, remember Tibet and honour the resilience of Tibetans everywhere, their hope, their struggle and their commitment to non-violence. Let’s make sure their voice is heard.
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