With an area of 2.5 million square meters, Tibet is situated in the centre of Asia. The land which houses a population of six million Tibetans is also home to the highest mountains on earth, a vast, dry tableland and big river valleys. The average elevation is 13,000 feet above sea level.
There are three big provinces in Tibet: Amdo, Kham and U Tsang.
Kham province, situated within the Chinese Autonomous Region of Tibet, Sichuan and Yunnan, is the poorest of them. In this region the majority of the population is ethnically Tibetan. They work in small-scale agriculture and cattle herding. Nevertheless, agricultural profits are small and hardly sufficient for family maintenance. Furthermore, the extreme weather with freezing winters forces them to spend a big part of their profits in acquiring heating fuel.
In spite of the abundance of snow, only 37% of children have access to clean drinking water. In some regions water supply is infected with parasites and other impurities causing dysentery and other long-term health problems.
At the same time there are few highways so people are forced to travel by jeep or horse.
That is why children education ultimately falls by the wayside.