About
Dolma Ecotourism Vision and Background
Dolma Ecotourism was established and financed through a partnership with the Dolma Development Fund and Tsering Lama in 2003. It provides an exploration of the self as much as the world. Our visitors experience an intimate cultural, spiritual and natural adventure in a remote pocket of humanity. Dolma Ecotourism was established for the mutual benefit of both visitor and villager. While the visitor learns the invaluable lessons of far flung societies, so those societies should benefit in kind. Dolma Ecotourism shares any profits with the Dolma Development Fund for reinvestment in the community to empower the locals to defend their culture in changing times (see below).
Dolma Development Fund
 | The Dolma Development Fund was founded in 2003 as a non-profit impact investor, education sponsor and development advisor. Our mission is to use commercially sustainable methods where possible to alleviate poverty in remote areas, currently in Nepal and Ethiopia. We provide both financing and advice to local projects and businesses that have a positive social and environmental impact in their DNA, and we reinvest any returns into education and other support for our partner communities. In this way our capital is essentially recycled and used multiple times for good. Click here to learn more. |
Who is Dolma?
One of the most influential figures in starting the Dolma Development Fund in 2003 was the girl who donated her name to the Fund. Dolma is from the village of Bridim and was 9 years old when she and her family met Tim Gocher with their bright smiles and effortless hospitality. She became the first child to receive a Dolma Development Fund scholarship.
 Dolma starting her education in 2003 |  Dolma backed by the Tibetan Himalayas in 2011 |
She had had no real schooling. As the Nepali national curriculum normally starts at 6 years old, if she hadn’t started school then it would probably have been too late. Her hard work and dedication has proven to us and the many Fund-sponsored students that came after her, just what was possible. She consistently comes in the top four of her class, and is due to graduate in 2013. She inspired the Dolma Development Fund to develop sustainable methods to alleviate poverty and improve living standards in our partner communities in a way that respects and strengthens their cultural heritage.
Projects like Dolma Ecotourism have provided many more scholarships and other benefits for our partner communities. Simply by joining one of our adventures, you’ll be helping to transform someone’s life, just like Dolma.
