She lost her sight slowly as a child due to retinitis pigmentosa,[1] and her parents took her to many places so she would store up many visual memories, before becoming totally blind by the age of 12.

By 1992 Sabriye had developed Tibetan Braille, which later became the official reading and writing system for the blind in Tibet.

In addition to the school in Lhasa BWB runs a vocational training centre for blind adults with a farm and cheese factory near Shigatse.

In 2009, Sabriye Tenberken and her partner Paul Kronenberg also began kanthari international (name intentionally spelled with all letters in lower case) in a village near Thiruvananthapuram, India, They also established an International School for Development and Project Planning near Trivandrum, Kerala, India.

The school focuses on discovering and developing the hidden talents of persons from all over the world who often are socially neglected, especially because of disabilities, and empowering them to be innovators and leaders.