Lhadon Tethong

Co-founder and Director

Lhadon is an award-winning activist and leader of the Tibetan freedom movement who has been organizing and strategizing for Tibet almost all her life. In 2009, she co-founded Tibet Action Institute with a vision of combining cutting-edge technology with strategic nonviolence to design strategies and carry out innovative programs that advance human rights and freedom in Tibet.

In 2011, Lhadon was awarded the first annual James Lawson Award for Nonviolent Achievement by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and in 2018 she accepted the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy on behalf of Tibet Action Institute. Born in Canada to a Tibetan father and Canadian mother, she previously served as the Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet, building a powerful youth movement for Tibet.

A leading spokesperson on Tibet, Lhadon travels the globe educating governments, UN bodies, journalists, academics, and grassroots activists about China’s devastating role in Tibet and the power of strategic nonviolence, combined with new technologies, to affect social change even in the most repressed places on earth. When she’s not running around the world speaking out for Tibet, she’s trying to catch up to her three young children.

 

Top