From her Great Falls home office, Tencho Gyatso, 55, interim vice president of the International Campaign for Tibet, livestreams “Tibet Talks” all over the world. These chats have featured sitting U.S. representatives, ambassadors, lauded authors, and Ivy League thought leaders—even actor (and ICT chairman) Richard Gere. It would be an intimidating lineup for any moderator, but Gyatso is used to being around weighty presences. She’s the niece of the Dalai Lama himself—though she maintains the connection doesn’t give her a special status.
“In our Tibetan way, when a family member is recognized as a lama, or in this case the Dalai Lama, you look at him as a religious leader, not as a family member or uncle,” she says. It’s her commitment to the cause, rather than family loyalty, that drives Gyatso.
Some quick background: In 1959, after a failed Tibetan uprising against the Chinese government, their political and spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, escaped into exile. The Tibetan government-in-exile maintains that China’s destruction of Tibet’s culture and the oppression of its people have been brutal ever since; China, on the other hand, denies any accusations of rights abuses in Tibet.
Inspired by the Dalai Lama’s call for the international community to take action for Tibet, the ICT was founded in Washington, DC, in 1988, to provide political and humanitarian support for Tibetans while working toward their liberation. Gyatso, a former member of the exiled government, joined the ICT as a volunteer in 2009 after moving to the U.S. with her family.
But it wasn’t until the COVID lockdown in 2020 that Gyatso found a way to connect with the international community the Dalai Lama sought. Before the pandemic, her work focused on in-person action, which meant hosting speakers and lobbying Congress. But when ICT pivoted to a work-from-home policy, Gyatso started streaming its many programs. That’s when she realized ICT had an opportunity to cultivate a much wider audience. Her “Tibet Talks” have attracted viewers in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, India, Canada, Brazil, and even China. It’s given ICT a presence on the world stage for the Tibetan cause that many online activists could only dream of.
In the face of its rapid growth, the only question is, how much bigger will the organization get in the next few years? “My hope is that there will be no need for our organization, and we all lose our jobs,” she says with a smile. “This would mean that things are well in Tibet and that our mission is complete.”
Feature image by Will Reintzell
This story originally ran in our September issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to our monthly magazine.
