Free Tibet Week, a weeklong event, came to a close Thursday.

The campaign focused on the country’s culture and a
half-century long struggle for liberation from Chinese
occupation.

A series of films were shown throughout the week, and the
University of Wisconsin Students for a Free Tibet presented a
keynote speaker.

According to Tenzin Kunsang, a UW senior and group member,
Students for a Free Tibet is a worldwide organization with
approximately 650 chapters, the majority of which are in the United
States.

“We have been on this campus for a long time,”
Kunsang said.

Student membership has been stronger in the last couple
years.

Kunsang, whose mother and grandfather fled Tibet during the
Chinese invasion in the 1950s and wound up in India, said the group
has a grassroots focus and events like these help to spread
awareness.

“[We] are fighting to get voices to the people inside of
Tibet,” Kungsang said. “People talk about [an issue]
and it sits in their mind. Our hope is to help [teach] others how
to help.”

The primary reason for the event was to raise funds for Students
for a Free Tibet. He said it is sometimes difficult to generate
finances. This is the second time the organization has held events
like this.

“This campus has a long, wonderful history of activism,
[and] shreds of that permeate the thinking of some people
[today],” said Ada Deer, lecturer in the School of Social
Work and Director of the UW American Indian Studies program. UW was
one of the two most active protesting campuses during the Vietnam
conflict, she said.

Kunsang thinks many people who join Students for a Free Tibet
are drawn to the pace and compassion of Tibet’s main
religion, Buddhism.

“Many members [of the organization] have personally gone
to Tibet and seen that the people there don’t have freedom of
religion or speech,” Kunsang said. “I know a girl who
said after visiting, ‘It’s saddening to see people
afraid in their own country.’”

The keynote speaker Tuesday night was Jamyang Norbu, a
well-known author and activist for the Tibet Resistance
movement.

The four films showed covered topics ranging from the culture
and difficulties of Tibetan people to the Central Intelligence
Agency’s involvement with covert operations in Tibet.

“It gives me hope when people ask me, ‘What is this
thing about?’” Kunsang said. “It is piece of mind
to know others care for Tibet and want to work and sacrifice for
the cause.”