Social Projects: Introduction

All through the long history of Buddhism, women have played a very important role. They received full ordination from the Buddha himself, were teachers, healers, great masters, founded lines of transmission and achieved enlightenment.

Their contributions have been many and varied, in their endeavour to help others. Equally throughout the ages, women rarely had access to places of education or schools (if only to learn how to read or write), which made it very difficult and rare for them to pass on their spiritual experiences and achievements.

All we can do in this time and age is to try and find some of the traces left and to make sure that women all over the world are able to train and receive an education.

To ease their way at last, many small as well as big projects have been founded.

The network of buddhist women in Europe would like to introduce seven of these projects, in order to ask for your solidarity and help your support will help women to contribute in even better and more useful ways, leading towards a more just and also more peaceful world.