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The Spirit of China, operating under the officially-registered auspices of Soul of Qiang Cultural Communication Centre, is a grassroots NGO based in the Mianyang area, formed just three days after the earthquake. They have four full-time staff and a base of volunteers to help victims of the earthquake and with general social development. They generally focus on improving the lives of elderly or disabled people, orphaned children, and disadvantaged students. SQR recently visited their office in Mianyang to learn of their work and the issues still being faced in the local area.
Since May 2008 they have sponsored the education of over 200 poor students, and for the last two summers have run camps similar to SQR’s SAME Camps. Among their recently-announced small-scale projects is a request to help rebuild, supply, and bring relief to an orphan school of 31 children in Santai County.
Lying on the edge of earthquake-zone, the orphanage was in the process of building a brand new building, designed to accommodate more orphans in the future, when the earthquake struck. The building they were living and schooling in at the time was slightly damaged and rather than spend their limited funds on reinforcing it, they decided to move to the new building early, despite it being unfinished. The children both live and are educated there. The early move has put a significant strain on their financial resources, and they are already 70,000 RMB in debt to a local contractor.
The orphanage receives no financial support from the government, but is subject to official inspections to monitor the safety of the building. Spirit of China provides a small amount of funding for the orphans’ food and living expenses — amounting to just over 3000 RMB a month, allowing the orphans to be provided with meat in their meals two to three times a week, and occasionally drink milk with their breakfast. (Before the support of this organisation, the orphanage could only afford to provide meat twice a month.) As well as paying for the work already completed, among the most pressing requirements of the orphanage are:
- The school playground and walls need rebuilding, at a total cost of 40,000 RMB. Spirit of China has already raised more than 17,000 RMB (10,000 RMB of which has been given directly to the school by a donor) and is seeking further generous donors to reach the target amount. At present there are very limited recreational facilities for the children — they have a very crude table-tennis table, and otherwise play on the mountainside, where it is difficult to be supervised and easy to be injured. A planned activity room on the upper floor of the building also remains unfinished due to lack of funding.
- They also need sets of winter clothes (mostly coats, trousers, shoes, warm underwear, socks, scarves and gloves), and are asking for 200 books, comics, or other reading material suitable for children.
Additionally, for the coming Chinese New Year — traditionally a time when families come together — the orphanage was asking for donations to buy New Year gifts for their 31 children. It had been decided that the valued of the gifts should not exceed 50 RMB, so they were looking to raise around 1500 RMB.
After we visited the orphan school and talked with the staff and children there, a donation of 1600 RMB was made in the name of Sichuan Development Foundation Limited, the registered charity under whose auspices SQR operates, to provide the orphans with New Year gifts.
Organisations such as Spirit of China, which can provide concrete ideas for projects as well as details of administration costs and evidence of making a contribution to society, would be potential candidates for SQR’s planned “Re-granting” project, but they can also be supported directly by individuals, companies or other organisations.
If you are interested in making a donation directly to support the above orphan school project, or would like to learn more about the Spirit of China organisation, please contact us.