The Di Kang Le Kindergarten in Guangji has held its first student-and-parents sports day since it was rebuilt and reopened in September. SQR was there to enjoy the fun and games.
This is the fifth time the school has held a sports day; Principal Kang said this year’s was the most successful to date, with over 130 families taking full advantage of their much-enlarged playground area.
After completing the reinforcements and laying the new playground and car park up at SQR’s Guangji Kindergarten and Community Centre project, the next phase was immediately begun. A brand new building will not only replace one that was damaged beyond repair, but expand and improve on it too. The building will contain new classrooms, a dormitory for that all-important nap time, a kitchen capable of feeding 140 hungry mouths each and every day, and an environmental toilet.
Meanwhile, flu season is here. Principal Kang and her staff keep an eye on their students to make sure no one is neither unduly suffering nor spreading the illness to their classmates. Temperatures are taken as the students arrive at school every morning — any sign of fever and the parents or grandparents are advised to take them back home or to the local clinic.
Until now the staff had been using traditional thermometers, which is not ideal when handling such a large number of people. On one of our regular visits to the school, SQR brought along a brand new non-contact thermometer, which can accurately read the temperature from a few centimetres away, in under a second. The new gadget not only brings a hygenic benefit, but the added speed means the staff can give the grandparents a quick temperature-check too.
Work continues apace up at SQR’s Guangji Kindergarten project, with the completion of a new, protected pathway from the gate to the first school-building. A small wall prevents the children from running onto the new bike- and car-park on the way up the path. As they enter the building, a new sign politely reminds the children and staff to speak Mandarin, as opposed to the local dialect that they speak at home, to ensure that by the time they are graduated to primary school, they have the same language levels as their urban peers.
In front the recently-reinforced existing building, the newly-laid playground is already in use, with flowerbeds all along the back wall either side of the daily assembly point. A temporary wall restricts access to the site at the back of the grounds, where work has begun on the foundations of the new classrooms, dormitories and kitchen.
SQR is immensely pleased to report that a major stage of our Guangji Kindergarten & Community Centre project has been completed: the existing building has been reinforced with steel, certified as safe and the children were back having lessons in a permanent structure on the first day of the Spring semester yesterday.
Qingchuan County, northern Sichuan.
After the earthquake destroyed many of the local village schools in Qingchuan County, it was decided that rather than rebuild each small school, a large central school would be built in the nearest town. Unfortunately, for many of these villages the nearest town could be more than twenty kilometres away, along roads that have frequently been blocked by landslides, or made inaccessible by local rivers bursting their banks during the rainy season.
Some of the villages that have lost their local schools in Qingchuan County, along with the nearest towns.
Villages such as Liping, Yanyan, Minzhu and Shuimo have all been told that their school-age children must now attend the central school in Qima Town. For some parents, this means sending their child to board at the school — a cost of 120 RMB a month; for many, it means renting a place in Lijiaguo, close to Qima, costing up to 600 RMB a month including food and utilities. That’s around 6000 RMB per academic year in a region where annual earnings are approximately half that amount. This kind of expense cannot be borne for long, and already more than half of the students from these villages are staying at home instead of going to the central school, receiving no schooling whatsoever.
The situation is the same all over the county: students from Heping Village — some two hundred of them — must not only travel by road, but spend forty minutes on the river in order to reach Yingpan Central Primary School; Jinjiaping is three or four hours walk away from Maoba Central Primary School; Sandui is five kilometres along mountain roads from Shazhou. The list goes on.
The villagers overwhelmingly want their own local schools to be rebuilt; impressively, more than thirteen villages in Qingchuan County have won an agreement from the local education bureau that, provided they find the funding to rebuild the school themselves, then teachers will be supplied and the school will be permitted run.
The people of Liping have led the way in raising money, from within their own community and from companies further afield, and succeeded in building a 120-square-metre school — more than enough to educate all of the local children and with room to grow. But they were aghast to be told, when they applied for the permit to begin operations, the education bureau had apparently specified that village schools must be larger than 200 square metres in order to qualify. No-one had heard of this restriction while the school was being planned.
Further confusion ensued when the representatives from Yanyan — a village that had had its own school for almost fifty years before the quake — started work on their own plans for a school, necessarily bigger than 200 square metres, only to be told that it must be at least 300 square metres if it was to be allowed to hire teachers, despite being barely six kilometres (as the crow flies) from Liping. People started to wonder if the central school in Qima was having a hand in these policy-switches in order to keep as many students (and with them, more funding) for themselves.
But the people in Liping could not bear the thought of their time, money, and hard work going to waste — not to mention choosing between struggling to afford to send their child to the central school, or having no education at all. They pleaded with the education bureau to overlook the size-restriction and — thanks in large part to a relative of the community being an employee at the bureau — they were at last granted the permit. Classes will begin again at Liping Village Elementary School from next semester.
The other villages we have mentioned are not so lucky to have friends in high places, and are stuck either wondering if they should risk going ahead to rebuild a school that may not be permitted to run, or struggling to locate the funds to rebuild their own schools at all. SQR is monitoring the situation to determine if anything can be done for these other villages, collectively or individually.
The Confederation of British Industry’s Chief Representative in Beijing is raising money for a key SQR project, the Guangji Kindergarten & Community Centre.
Many Beijing residents will have travelled along some part of the Jingcheng (Beijing to Chengde) highway enroute perhaps to the Great Wall at either Mutianyu or Jinshanling.
Guy Dru Drury, the CBI's Chief Representative in Beijing, prepares to take on the gruelling 500km 2009 JCCR
However, have you ever considered continuing along its entirety, past Beijing’s principal reservoir at Miyun and on into the mountains that lead, after 200 KM, to the imperial resort of Chengde? Well, if you do then you’ll be visiting the summer hideaway of successive Chinese Emperors who created their very own “summer palace” nestled in the mountains that overlook the Mongolian steppes. It is home to China’s largest palace garden and, incidentally, the world’s shortest river, the Rehe. At a mere 9 miles in length it feeds the bucolic Rehe springs and is largely contained within the vast expanse of the royal palace grounds. In August, and tentatively scheduled to coincide with the one year anniversary of the Olympic opening ceremony, the CBI’s Chief Representative, Guy Dru Drury, will be embarking on his own journey from Beijing to Chengde following the route of the Jingcheng highway. Travelling by a mixture of road and mountain bike he aims to cover the mountainous 500km roundtrip route in 20 hours over the weekend of the 8 August.
It is all in the name of a good cause, namely raising money for the reconstruction of the Guangji Kindergarten destroyed in last year’s devastating earthquake.
Downloadable information
If you would like to support Guy’s efforts then please give generously to SQR directly. By the way, if you do want to visit Chengde you can of course travel there in air‐conditioned comfort either by car or rail if a 20 hour cycle ride is not your preferred means of transport!
Guy Dru Drury (guydd@cbi.org.uk and gdrudrury@gmail.com)
Beijing 01.07.09
June 28 – July 3 SQR SAME Summer Camp Session 1 at GuangJi Township near Mianzhu
Last week 7 enthusiastic SQR volunteers trekked up to GuangJi to set up the first SAME Summer Camp at GuangJi Township near Mianzhu (2hrs from Chengdu). The GuangJi Kindergarten and Preschool was chosen as our first location because SQR already had an existing relationship with the school principal, Kang Laoshi (‘laoshi’ = ‘teacher’). SQR is actively coordinating the demolition and rebuilding of one of the buildings damaged in last year’s quake.
The 7 volunteers consisted of international students (an American and Brazilian) as well as local Sichuan university students and recent grads. We met on Sunday afternoon at the Bookworm for a short meeting to discuss the upcoming week’s plans then set off by van to GuangJi, arriving by early evening to meet with Kang Laoshi and discuss the week’s schedule and lesson plans.
Our accommodation were more than adequate in that Kang laoshi allowed us to sleep in the temporary classrooms next door to the permanent buildings. It was quite comfortable since we were provided beds and linen and had access to lighting and electricity. The worst inconvenience was the occassional mosquito bite.
The first morning and day began well with the local teachers starting the kids off with morning exercises and dances to loosen up kids for an active day of learning. It was wonderful to see, and I took loads of pictures.
Throughout the day the SQR volunteers conducted their teaching modules in Sports, Art, Music and English; working alongside the local teachers and adjusting our lesson plans to tailor to the school children’s various levels. In that sense, the volunteers are challenged to adapt quickly and be flexible to the needs of the children.
During the second night at camp a 5.6 quake struck nearby Mianzhu shaking us out of bed, but luckily no major damage was inflicted. Indeed it was a stark reminder of why we were there in the first place. Less than 12 hours later an aftershock of 5.0 occurred during napping time for the kids. The local teachers and SQR volunteers quickly scrambled to evacuate the children from the permanent building and arrange for classes to be conducted in the temporary classrooms the rest of the week. Seeing some of the children distraught and crying from the quake gave us another reminder of why we were there.
The remaining week went on smoothly. The classes and activities were fun and interesting for the kids and the experience gained by the volunteers was challenging yet every bit rewarding and life enriching.
I am lucky to have been apart of such a wonderful experience and will remember and cherish it forever. During our last dinner with Kang laoshi, I thanked her for everything she had done for us and told her that “Sichuan will forever be in our hearts.”
Leeman Now
SQR SAME Summer Camp Project Mgr
The Chinese University of HK, MBA 2011
The first SAME camp of 2009 was a success, or "A range of high marks for the ballroom dancers."
The first of professional nursing facility completed a construction project in Sichuan earthquake-stricken district (Xinhua, writer: Zhou Runjian)
Journalists have got news from Hetong Old Age Welfare Association in Tianjin city that the Chinese Red Cross Foundation helped Hetong Old Age Welfare Association with indiscriminate subsidies to design and build the foundation of the Hetong nursing facility of the Red Cross in Ziyan, Mianzhu.
This is the first of professional nursing facilities of reconstruction project in earthquake-stricken area, which aimed at helping the old and childless, the orphaned and disabled.
The Hetong nursing facility, located at 602 Yufei Road Jiannan town, Mianzhu city, which is one of the reconstruction projects. The organization covers an area of 900 square metres. The facility has 10 units of 2 to 4 rooms with 40 beds.
2009-06-04 10:17 Journalist: Yang Jin
The largest housing project for low-income urban residents has started in Guozhu, Weizhou, in Wenchuan. Guangzhou project is helping to build the project. This is the largest scale reconstruction and most significant investment of its type in the area.
The purpose of the project is recovering and improving living standards. A total investment of about 300 million yuan is planned, and the total area is about 850 square km, with 6 kinds of house types. The project is expected to finish in November 2009, when the houses could be used.
On 30th April 2009, two SQR volunteers and a professional surveyor went up to the Guangji Kindergarten and the topographical survey is now complete.
The next stage is to get architectural plans drawn up, whilst finding builders and project management professionals.
GuangJi Kindergarten
The Guangji Preschool & Kindergarten was founded in 2000 by school principal Kang Yuling and several other teachers. The school is now the only preschool and kindergarten serving five villages. After the closure of other schools, to ensure the continuing education of the youngest members of her community, Kang Yuling rallied her fellow teachers, and then donated her family home and farmland to the cause. The group raised enough money to build a basic two-storey structure, and a small play area alongside her family home.
The new structure became classrooms, while the older structures housed teachers’ quarters, kitchen, and offices.
The May earthquake destroyed Kang’s house, and the former family home is badly damaged, and needs to be demolished. The new structure needs reinforcement if it is to be declared safe.
See photos of the school (in temporary prefabricated buildings) from January 2009.
Sichuan Quake Relief is working with the school principal, parents and teachers, on a project to rebuild the kindergarten.
The following is a second journal entry from Becky Priebe, who, as Becky Hoops took part in the recent ‘Clown Trauma Tour.’
See also Part 1 for a report on Clowns Sans Frontieres’ tour of Sichuan.
China Earthquake Tour, Part 2
The second half of our tour took place in a city called Mianzhu. This city, 2 hours north of Chengdu, was gravely affected by the earthquake. At first glance we immediately saw small signs of damage: cracked buildilngs, random piles of bricks, almost empty river beds (dams that controlled the rivers had burst during the earthquake), but the most obvious sign was the thousands of rows of temporary housing and temporary schools, on the outskirts of the city.
This “temporary” city, made of white and blue metal, consisted of corrugated retangle row housing, forming a completely new city… like a refuge camp within the country’s own borders. Conditions are basic: electricity, no heating, no running water and no windows. There are more than a million people currently living in these conditions. They are no longer receiving governement aid and most are separated from their family networks. In China, family, community and work networks are very important, many earthquake victims are left without this support system.Most of the shows we did in Mianzhu were in one of the temporary schools. There were about 10 000 children attending this school, so we did multiple shows at the same school for a few days. The children were between the ages of 5 and 16, and shows were for between 400 and 1200 kids at a time. By the end of the week we were had apparently earned a somewhat disconcerning rockstar status…. for those who are curious: yes, 1000 Chinese teenagers who all want an autograph at the same time, is a bit intimidating.
In Mianzhu we also did shows for a retirement home and in the temporary housing project for those who happened to be there. The elderly reacted just as strongly as the children, with a bit less pushing for autographs at the end. One man began yelling, or what I perceived at yelling, at me before we started a show. I was intimated and thought that he didn’t want us there, he seemed agressive and upset. Upon receiving traslation, we realized that he was expressing his apologies that we should see such an ugly part of the country and that he was happy we had come. After he saw me two-person-hula-hooping with a stern, young police officer he was even more happy we had come.
The day that hit me the hardest was when we visited the city of rubble where all of the displaced people had lived, worked and attended school. For the first time since we had arrived in China, it was quiet. There were no people in streets selling fruit, cheap clothing and plastic toys, no herds of school children, there were no traffic jams or honking horns. But within the disturbing silence, if you listened carefully, you could still hear the millions of people screaming as their homes and schools collapsed upon them. Among the rubble we saw toys, stuffed animals, baby shoes; unsettling reminders of children crying and whimpering under mountains of rubble, wondering if they would be rescued in time. Or relatives, crying out to loved ones for days and weeks, with the chances of their survival dwindling with each hour. This day hit me hard. It made me realise in a very tangible way what these “refugees”, we have been performing for, had been through. It fed me with a heightened desire to make the children laugh, to bring joy and smiles to the people. My ridiculous complaints about the food and cold weather began to seem insignificant and frivolous compared with the grim realities these displaced people had lived through and are continuing to face.
One collapsed school we visited was reduced to rubble in seconds, killing 3000 students instantly. Some parents lost their only child; with the “One Child Policy” in China, families are legally restricted from having more than one child; couples are sometimes sterilized after their first child is born.
The government is not really giving much money or aid to these temporary cities. Maybe I don’t understand the issue in its entirety, but I am still somewhat enraged when I think back to the massive expenditures of the recent Olympics in Beijing. There is also a theory that the numerous dams built in the area contributed to weakening the fault line. There are so many issues like these that seem to become increasingly complex upon deeper research and investigation. It is really touchy for any Chinese people to say negative things about the government; even when we had translaters it was difficult to know how people really felt.
The last show we did was in a school for children that had lived in the hardest hit city of WenChuan. These kids were, for some reason or another displaced over 6 hours from their families to live in a vacant factory. The kids were mostly teenagers of minority background. They loved the show and we even won over the slightly reluctant principal. This show, and one other show we did during this tour, was in collaboration with an organization called “Sichuan Earthquake Relief”. This non-governmental oganisation (NGO) has done and is still doing some really phenomenal work in the quake stricken communities accross the province. For more information on this NGO please visit:
http://www.sichuan-quake-relief.org/
For those who are interested in statistics of the aftermath of the quake (as of June 2008, stats obtained from Sim’s Cozy Guesthouse):
69 197 deaths
374, 176 people were injured
12, 222 missing
7, 789,100 houses were totally collapsed
24, 590,000 houses were damaged
15, 147,400 survivors had been transferred (mostly to temporary housing units, I described earlier)
Up to 46 million people were estimated to have been affected.
See first part of Becky’s report here, and her website, for more.
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