07/02/2026
A Heartfelt Thank You to our German Auntie!
We at Nyö Foundation are deeply grateful to our German auntie Veronika Pilscheur for sharing her incredible journey to Bhutan with our founding member and her friend Dr. Sonam Choden. Their storytelling evening in Hamburg not only showcased the beauty and culture of Bhutan but also introduced our foundation and the work being done here.
Moreover, we thank her for the thoughtful fund raising for Nyö Foundation.
This is what she wrote;
Trip to Bhutan March 2025
In March 2026, my friend, Prof. Anne Berning from Berlin and I had the opportunity to travel to Bhutan with our mutual friend Dr. Sonam Choden from Sumthrang (Bumthang District), daughter of the lineage holder of Sumthrang Monastery.
We had known Sonam since she came to Hamburg 10 years ago to study for her master's and PhD, and she has almost become a member of the family. After my retirement, it was time for her to show us her country, something she had been promising to do for a long time. I already had a picture of the Tiger's Nest Monastery hanging on my wall.
The encounter with the country and people of Bhutan, the journey from east to west, getting to know Sonam's family and the monastery and family foundation (Nyo Foundation) made a deep impression on us.
The devotion and the groundedness of the people, the wonderful nature, the Buddhism which is still so alive and the humanitarian and ethical attitude of the people to eachother were palpable everywhere. The lively inclusion of nature in all decisions about the future of the country, the high value placed on the forest, the freedom from profit-oriented thinking through other fundamental values that are already taught in school, made our friends curious in our travel reports, so we invited them to an evening of storytelling about Bhutan and showed our photos with the help of a projector in my flat in Hamburg-Altona.
Studying more books, including reading some of the writings of the famous and the first Bhutanese female author Kunzang Choden, broadened our horizons.
Sonam and her husband Pema were also in Hamburg for our Bhutan evening in January 2026 and were able to come and treat our friends with homemade momos and Bhutanese tea and afterwards they could answer questions in more detail.
The audience who are my friends included artists, sculptors and painters, teachers and retired teachers, social educators and physiotherapists, journalists and mathematicians, a Qigong teacher, and my children and grandchildren.
I had asked them not to bring anything to the evening except their own drinks but if they wanted, they could put something in the box provided for donations to the Nyo Foundation. We offered quiche, cake and, above all, momos and tea.
Actually it wasn't really a fundraising evening, we simply wanted to share our joy of our travel experiences. Many of them had never heard of Bhutan before and were very enthusiastic about what they heard and were happy to make a small contribution to the box. It was completely voluntary. We are delighted to be able to make a tiny contribution to the wonderful work being done there. The pictures of our trip made a huge impression on everyone.
