We'd like to share with you some of the highlights of Students for a Free Tibet's work in 2009. These campaigns and initiatives would not have been possible without support and action from all our members and supporters. Thank you to everyone who has helped to make a difference for Tibet in the past year.

From all of us at SFT HQ, Tashi Delek and best wishes for the new year. May 2010 bring Tibet even closer to freedom.

PROGRAMS & INITIATIVES

• Last winter, Tibetans in Tibet initiated the No Losar movement, foregoing Tibetan New Year celebrations to mourn those killed in China's crackdown following the 2008 Uprising. To amplify this homegrown Tibetan movement, Lhadon and I hosted an online daily show called Our Nation: News and Analysis on the State of Tibet. The show, which ran from February 10th to March 11th, was viewed by more than 24,500 people.
  
  
• As SFT members prepared for global protests on March 10th to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan National Uprising, SFT HQ helped to organize the first ever Lobbying Day for Tibet in the national capitals of the US, Canada, and the UK. SFT's Tibetan members and student leaders were at the forefront of this effort to strengthen relations with our governmental representatives. We're already planning our next Lobbying Day for Tibet in 2010.
  
  
• In the lead up to March 10th, SFT launched the Profiles in Courage online campaign: every day we honored a Tibetan individual who has made a significant contribution to the Tibetan freedom struggle. By March 10th, we had profiled 50 Tibetans who embody the enduring spirit of Tibetan resistance.
  
  
• In June, following months of protest inside Tibet, combined with international pressure, Tibetans in Markham, eastern Tibet, forced a Chinese mining company to close a hazardous mining operation in the area. This victory gave a boost to our Stop Mining Tibet campaign, which will continue to be a focus for SFT in 2010.
  

• In January and February 2009, we held regional trainings in Amherst, New York City, Madison, and San Francisco. In March, SFT held a workshop on strategic nonviolence in Bylakuppe, South India, for a group of 35 Tibetan monk activists.
  
  
• In August, we held our first Training-for-Trainers workshop in upstate New York, providing 25 of SFT's most strategic and visionary young leaders from around the world with the tools and resources to refine their leadership skills and become successful trainers themselves.
  
  
• In October, we held our 3rd SFT Leadership Training in Dharamsala, India. We trained 30 young Tibetan organizers in nonviolent activism, grassroots organizing, and media communication skills.
  
  
• In May, Tendor went on a week-long speaking tour of Japan. Following the trip he made with Lhadon to Taiwan in December 2008, it became clear how important it is for the future of our movement to have a strong youth base in East Asia. SFT now has formal national networks of students and activists in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, and in the New Year I will be traveling to Indonesia to attend the World Movement for Democracy conference and to build grassroots support in this region.

• This fall, in collaboration with the International Tibet Support Network, SFT launched the Free Tibetan Heroes campaign, mobilizing international pressure for the release of political prisoners like Dhondup Wangchen and Tenzin Delek Rinpoche while highlighting China's ongoing detention of hundreds of Tibetans who participated in the 2008 Uprising.
  
  
• In October, SFT helped get critical information about developments in Dhondup Wangchen's case to the New York Times resulting in a featured article that was published just prior to President Obama's first Presidential visit to China.
  
  
• When on October 1st, the Empire State building, possibly America's most iconic building, was lit up in red and yellow to honor the founding of communist China, we mobilized our grassroots base. We held two widely covered rallies in front of the building and projected the Tibetan flag onto surrounding buildings and the message 'NY Hearts Human Rights' from inside the building itself.
  
  
• This December, SFT worked with a coalition of organizations under the banner of the Tibet Third Pole campaign to shine a spotlight on a growing crisis in Tibet - the climate change crisis. Scientists have confirmed that the temperature on the Tibetan plateau is rising twice as fast as the rest of the earth, making the survival of Tibetan nomads, the traditional stewards of Tibet's fragile eco-system, even more precarious.
  
  
• In early December, a team of SFT organizers from the UK, Germany, and France were at the COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, demanding a voice for Tibetans in global discussions on climate change.