Tibetan Journey from Theocracy to Democracy
Born in Lhasa, Tibet in 1951, Thubten Samdup arrived in India as a refugee in 1959. He was recruited into the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in 1960 as a child performer; he later became a teacher there and eventually its director. In 1973, Samdup received a John D. Rockefeller III Fund Scholarship, under which he studied ethnomusicology at Brown University.
In 1980, Samdup moved to Canada where he served as president of the Tibetan Cultural Association of Quebec. In 1987, he co-founded the Canada Tibet Committee, a cross-Canada network of Tibet advocates, serving as its national president for 17 years.
Samdup was subsequently elected as the first member of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile representing Tibetans in North America. He also established and oversaw the International Tibet Network, a coalition of more than 100 Tibetan groups from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa and he initiated the Kalontripa project, which encouraged individuals to autonomously nominate candidates for election as Tibetan Prime Minister. In 2009, His Holiness the Dalai Lama appointed Samdup as his representative at the Office of Tibet in London, where Samdup served until September 2014.
Samdup is the recipient of an exceptional artist award from Harvard University, and the 2005 Hero of Compassion Award, a project of the Grace Family Foundation. He is included among the "Committee of 100" for Tibet and has served on the board of directors of several Tibet-related organizations in Canada, the United States, and Europe.