OUR MISSION

Founded in 2009 under the patronage and initiative of Her Majesty the Queen Mother, Gyalyum Tshering Yangdoen Wangchuck, the Bhutan Nuns Foundation was established to bridge the gap between Buddhist nuns and supporters. The vision of BNF is to enhance the education, wellbeing, and opportunities of young girls and women in nunneries who have chosen the monastic path in service of the community and the Buddhist teachings.

The mission of the Bhutan Nuns Foundation (BNF) is to empower and educate Bhutanese women and young girls who are in the nunneries.

Through your support, we can improve the living conditions, health and well-being of nuns, provide quality education and services, and foster self-reliance. This in turn helps preserve Bhutan’s strong, sustainable culture and promotes nuns, other women and girls as agents of social change in a rapidly changing modern society.

TRAINING AND RESOURCE CENTRE PROJECT

The Bhutan Nuns Foundation’s Training and Resource Centre (TRC) at Tshalumaphey, Thimphu, stands as a vibrant hub dedicated to the empowerment of nuns, women, and youth. Supported by UNICEF, BNF has also developed a Strategic Plan (2023–2032) to guide the TRC’s next decade of growth, focusing on institutional strengthening and collaborative capacity-building across nunneries.

With its major infrastructure now complete—including the academic and library blocks, residential facilities, kitchen, dining, and community areas—the TRC has become fully operational. The relocation of the BNF office from Motithang to the Centre in 2022 further strengthened its role as a living campus for education, skill development, and spiritual practice.

Since welcoming its first group of nuns in 2021, the TRC has hosted numerous programmes in partnership with national and international organizations. These include yoga, digital literacy, English language, and life skills training, as well as summer retreat practice and preliminary practice transmissions for lay practitioners.

A healing space, soon to be inaugurated, will offer traditional medicine services and a Himalayan rock salt healing corner for detox.

Today, the TRC continues to serve as a centre of learning, healing, and empowerment—a place where spiritual values and modern education come together to inspire resilience, wisdom, and service to others.