Sichuan Quake Relief

Poverty is inevitably still a huge problem, given the impact of the earthquake on areas which were living at subsistence level.

Information about Qima Township in Qingchuan obtained by SQR in the past few days.

Basic Situation

6 hours drive from Chengdu, 1 hour from Qinchuan County. The road connecting villages and townships can get rather muddy when rains but accessible.

The nearest NGO (World Vision International, which set up its office there before the earthquake) working in Qingchuan is in Qiaozhuang Township, 1 hour drive away from Qima.

There are 8000 residents, many of them are suffering from rheumatism, cholelithiasis, gall-stones, and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. The township does have a public clinic but only with limited facilities and meds, so the doctors working there are not able to treat illnesses like these.

According to the figures collected by a local volunteer, there are 600+ patients who cannot afford even ordinary medical services. This group of people consists mostly of elderly people without children or living by themselves while children are working somewhere else.

Progress of reconstruction is uneven. Better-off families have already had their new houses built and have moved in. However, many families just finished the foundation part as to claim the subsidy (the policy is that full subsidy is issued only to families that begin reconstruction before 12th May 2009). Some people, as in Caopo, have been using the subsidy or micro-credit to cover their basic necessities, rather than to reconstruct their houses.

There is one central primary school (1-9 grade), and four village primary schools, with 704 students in total. Grades 1 to 3 include 48 preschool students and 48 students from the village primary schools.

The village primary schools provide classes for one specific group only: for Grade 1 students who live too far away from the central school and cannot afford to live in a school dormitory, and each has around 10-20 students.

Students now have classes in a row of prefabricated houses. More than 400 of them live in villages far from this school. They do not pay tuition fees but do have to buy ‘meal tickets’ that are used to buy meals in the school dining room, the cost of which ranges from 80 to 200 per month, depending on the financial situation of students’ families.

Recent Activities
1. Children’s Day

Various people (contacts of SQR) are going to Qima Primary School on the Children’s Day. The school will have its own activities in the morning, and then the students have their own in the afternoon. One suggestion is for 4-7 people to visit the children to organise activities for them. The thing these people need help with is to buy gifts for the 704 students and to fund the delivery.

2. Jun 28th free-of-charge medical consultation

SQR’s contact, Yang, said he’ll notify the locals to come to the central village that day, and will bring a couple of nurses and doctors there. The consultation takes one or two days. Help is needed getting medicine for this trip.

SQR is waiting for the list, and will make it available to those who are willing to help out.