Bhutan Nuns Foundation

The Bhutan Nuns Foundation (BNF; Dzongkha: འབྲུག་གི་ཨ་ནི་ཚོགས་པ་) is a Bhutanese non-governmental organisation founded in March 2009 with the mission of improving the living conditions and educational opportunities of Buddhist nuns in Bhutan. It operates under the royal patronage of Her Majesty the Queen Mother Ashi Tshering Yangdon Wangchuck and is led by founder and Executive Director Dr Tashi Zangmo.^[1]

The foundation works with around 28 Buddhist nunneries across Bhutan, providing literacy and numeracy classes, English-language teaching, Buddhist studies, life-skills education, vocational training, and basic health-care support. Dr Tashi Zangmo was named one of BBC's 100 Most Influential Women of 2018 in recognition of her work with the foundation.^[2]

Background

The Buddhist nun community in Bhutan has historically had far fewer resources than the much larger male monastic community managed by the Zhung Dratshang. Before the foundation's establishment, most Bhutanese nunneries operated without state funding, often relied on irregular alms from local lay communities, and offered limited formal education to their resident nuns. The foundation's establishment was framed as a response to that disparity and to wider conversations within the Bhutanese Buddhist community on the role and welfare of women in religious life.^[3]

Programmes

The foundation's training portfolio over the past decade has included child protection and child rights, menstrual hygiene and reproductive health, life-skills education, disaster management and preparedness, nutrition and physical health, non-formal education and teaching methodology, and the placement of English-language teachers in at least eleven nunneries. It also runs an annual conference of nunneries, which it convened for the first time in 2014.^[4]

Training and Resource Centre

The foundation's Training and Resource Centre (TRC) is located on the outskirts of Thimphu and provides a dedicated venue for residential training programmes, conferences, and skill-building workshops for nuns drawn from across the country's nunneries. The opening of the centre marked the foundation's transition from an itinerant trainer model to a more institutional one.^[5]

Governance and Funding

The foundation operates as a registered civil-society organisation under the Civil Society Organisations Authority of Bhutan. Funding comes from royal patronage, donations within Bhutan, and grants from international Buddhist organisations and individual benefactors. The foundation is part of the wider international conversation on the gender gap in Buddhist monastic institutions, including questions around the bhikkhuni (full ordination) lineage, which has not historically been available to nuns in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition that predominates in Bhutan.

See Also

• Queen Mother Tshering Yangdon Wangchuck
• Zhung Dratshang (Central Monastic Body)
• Buddhism in Bhutan

References

1. Bhutan Nuns Foundation — Official Website
2. BBC Names Dr. Tashi Zangmo Among 100 Most Influential Women of 2018 — Buddhistdoor
3. An Agent of Change: Empowering Bhutanese Nuns — Buddhistdoor
4. Ten Years of Empowering Female Monastics — Buddhistdoor
5. Bhutan Nuns Foundation Shares Updates on BNF Training & Resource Centre — Buddhistdoor