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Princess Chimi Yangzom Wangchuck
Princess (Ashi) Chimi Yangzom Wangchuck, born 10 January 1980, is a princess of Bhutan and a half-sister of the fifth Druk Gyalpo Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. She is the daughter of the fourth Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck and Queen Mother Ashi Tshering Pem Wangchuck, and serves as Royal Patron of the Bhutan Ecological Society and Vice President of the Bhutan Youth Development Fund.
Princess Ashi Chimi Yangzom Wangchuck (born 10 January 1980) is a princess of Bhutan and a member of the Wangchuck royal family. She is the daughter of the fourth Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck and Ashi Tshering Pem Wangchuck, the second of the four sister-queens, and a half-sister of the fifth Druk Gyalpo Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.[1][2]
She holds royal patronage roles in two civil-society organisations: she is the Royal Patron of the Bhutan Ecological Society (BES), an environmental research and policy NGO she helped establish in 2010 with Dasho Paljor J. Dorji, and she serves as Vice President of the Bhutan Youth Development Fund (YDF), a national youth charity founded in 1999.[1][3][4]
Princess Chimi Yangzom is one of several adult children of the fourth Druk Gyalpo who hold formal civic roles in addition to ceremonial royal duties, alongside her sisters and brothers including the Crown Prince Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck and Princess Dechen Yangzom Wangchuck.
Family
The fourth Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck married four sisters — Ashi Dorji Wangmo, Ashi Tshering Pem, Ashi Tshering Yangdon and Ashi Sangay Choden — in a private ceremony in 1979 and a public ceremony in 1988. Princess Chimi Yangzom is the elder of two daughters born to the second queen Ashi Tshering Pem; her younger sister is Princess Ashi Kesang Choden Wangchuck (born 1982).[1][2]
She married Dasho Sangay Wangchuck on 13 October 2005 at Dechencholing Palace in Thimphu. Dasho Sangay Wangchuck (born 1978) is from a Bhutanese industrialist family and holds a master's degree in public administration from Columbia University. The couple have two sons: Dasho Jigme Ugyen Wangchuck (born 30 August 2006) and Dasho Jamyang Singye Wangchuck (born 2 December 2009).[1]
Education
Princess Chimi Yangzom completed her primary education at Luntenzampa Middle Secondary School and her secondary education at Yangchenphug Higher Secondary School in Thimphu. She subsequently attended Dana Hall School in Massachusetts, completed a bachelor's degree with a double major in international relations and economics at Wellesley College, and earned a master's degree in public administration from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York.[1]
Bhutan Ecological Society
The Bhutan Ecological Society (BES) was founded in 2010 to support applied environmental research, build domestic ecological-science capacity, and contribute to conservation policy in line with Bhutan's constitutional commitment to maintaining at least 60% forest cover. Princess Chimi Yangzom serves as Royal Patron, and Dasho Paljor J. Dorji, a senior conservationist and former special advisor to the National Environment Commission, is the founding chair. BES publishes the journal Bhutan Ecological Society Magazine and runs research grants for early-career Bhutanese ecologists.[3]
Bhutan Youth Development Fund
The Bhutan Youth Development Fund was established in 1999 under the patronage of Queen Mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck and is one of Bhutan's longest-running registered civil-society organisations. The Fund operates youth-skilling, peer-counselling and prevention programmes addressing youth unemployment, substance abuse and HIV, and runs the Golden Youth Awards recognising young Bhutanese leaders. Princess Chimi Yangzom serves as Vice President and has presided over the Golden Youth Awards in successive years; she presided over the 16th Golden Youth Award ceremony in 2024.[4][5]
Public role
In addition to her formal patronage positions, Princess Chimi Yangzom represents the royal family at state events, environmental and youth-sector launches, and overseas Bhutanese community gatherings. Like other members of the royal family in non-constitutional roles, she does not hold any executive or political office, and her public profile is concentrated in conservation, education and youth-welfare patronage rather than government.
References
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