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Sunshine Family Education Centre

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

The Sunshine Family Education Centre, based in Luoshui (an earthquake-affected community visited many times by Chengdu Sports Aid), develops parenting skills and improves children’s quality of life in disadvantaged rural areas. Sunshine instills the importance of children’s education, health care, living conditions and healthy child-parent interaction in parents through seminars and workshops to create more harmonious family environments.

Sunshine runs family education seminars for parents twice a month. Seminars address all aspects of family life, but consistently focus on shifting over-emphasis on school grades and academic achievement, to better balance with their physical and emotional welfare. The seminars utilise practical, hands-on demonstrations to emphasise the benefits of their family lessons. At weekends, the centre also facilitates self-help groups and outdoor activities to further instill parenting lessons by putting classroom theory into practice with the children’s participation.

Since Sunshine’s founding in November 2008, the centre has developed a team with strong expertise in family education and development. The staff is composed of two members of the high-level family education guidance division, two members of the mental health division, three social workers and one teacher. This team currently collaborates with the Chengdu branch of Non-Profit Incubator (NPI), whose incubation services will continue until November 2010. The team has also worked with the Trafigura Foundation, which built the community centre in which Sunshine operates.

In addition to providing direct family services, Sunshine is developing a detailed five-year model for the replication of its community centre development and services. Sunshine is looking for a long-term partner (two-three years) to provide funding assistance as well as to collaborate on future expansion. While Luoshui is just one of the disadvantaged areas in need of family development, Sunshine has had enormous success to date and has been well-received by its participants. Sunshine hopes that the implementation of this model in neighboring areas will continue the improvement of children’s welfare in rural Sichuan.

Posted in Childcare, Civil society, Education, NGO news, SQR Features | No Comments »

Tianping Village Seniors’ Society

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Tianping Village Seniors’ Society (TVSS; Chinese name: 绵竹市广济镇天平村老年协会) in rural Guangji was founded in January 2010 to enhance the quality of life of its senior citizens and to strengthen their community engagement. Although in general, seniors in China receive financial support from their children, it is increasingly common for the children to have moved to urban areas for their greater economic potential. As a consequence, the parents can often suffer from feelings of loneliness and detachment; community-based groups such as TVSS can provide a warm sense of cohesion. The lasting effects of the earthquake on the community — including loss of loved ones — has heightened the need for such organisations.

TVSS has already hosted numerous recreational activities to serve its 260 members, including sightseeing trips to Chengdu, and free traditional storytelling and dance performances. A community centre, constructed by the Macau Red Cross in response to the earthquake, currently houses the TVSS offices and its local performances.

Programmes to date have been funded out of pocket by the society’s chair, Yang Zhenqing (himself a senior), or by individual participants. In the near future, Mr. Yang would like to purchase a projector, exercise equipment and performance supplies for his community members, but currently does not have the means to do so. Profits from the sale of agricultural produce (grown and managed by members of TVSS in a garden adjacent to the community centre) have only partially covered the expenses of ongoing recreational activities, and have not allowed for these additional purchases.

TVSS aspires to partner with a local organisation for funding assistance and business management for its upcoming economic projects, including the opening of a grocery store and affordable public bathhouse facilities. TVSS will reinvest profits into the organisation for future operations and activities. In the long-term, Mr. Yang envisions TVSS expanding into nearby communities and providing more public services, such as microloan, health and childcare services (including public information talks).

Posted in Civil society, NGO news, SQR Features | No Comments »

Nashville-Mianzhu Penpal Project

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Hello! I am your new penpal. I am 10 years old. There are six people in my family: my father, my mother, my older sister, my younger brother, our dog, and me. I go to Julia Green Elementary School. I love football, and pigs.

So began Julie from Nashville, Tennessee’s introduction to her newest friend, almost 8000 miles away in Mianzhu, Sichuan. She had hand-written carefully in a mix of Chinese characters and pinyin for those characters she had not yet learned in the two years she has been studying Mandarin. Her letter, along with dozens of those of her classmates, was scanned and emailed — combining the pleasure of reading hand-written letters with the speed and convenience of the Internet. She received her reply from China, written in English, only a few days later, as did her classmates in response to their own letters, and the Nashville-Mianzhu penpal project was officially underway.

In September 2009, Ms. Caitlin Harris, a teacher at Julia Green Elementary School in Nashville, contacted SQR. Abigail Washburn had recently visited their school, playing songs from the Afterquake project and talking about the work of SQR and other organisations helping the victims of the earthquake. Ms. Harris wrote to say that she and her students were “very moved by the documentaries, information and images” they saw. Ms. Harris is a fluent Mandarin-speaker, and teaches the language to Julia Green students, which they learn in addition to their core subjects. She wondered if SQR would be able to help them set up a penpal exchange with a school in the quake-affected area: her students would write in Mandarin, the Chinese students using English.

Ms. Harris explained her hopes for the project:

The project will promote international understanding and commitment to the Chinese language. My students have already learned about Sichuan, so it will be very meaningful to my students to communicate with students from there. They very much enjoy Chinese, and composing letters for a native Chinese reader will benefit their studies. I would like to foster their excitement. I would like the Chinese students to learn about American children for the same reasons.

Our two countries’ futures are intertwined, and promoting friendship, cultural appreciation and understanding is an important goal.

SQR’s Outreach Coordinator Li Yuanyuan contacted the Mianzhu Education Department and, after introducing the project, received their full support. The department helped us select the Mianzhu Nanxuan Primary School, whose teaching building was seriously damaged in the earthquake. Fortunately only one student was injured. All the other students were safely evacuated through the efforts of the school’s faculty. With the help of three companies, including Nanjing Shengkai Corporation, the school moved into its new permanent building in September 2009.

Liasing with SQR, the headmaster of the Nanxuan primary school, Zhang Xiangyun, and Ms. Harris worked out project details. 61 Nanxuan students were selected for the project by review of students’ personal applications and their teachers’ recommendations. In January 2010, the Chinese students received the first batch of letters from America. Despite their busy exam preparation schedule, the students wrote back straightaway. The replies were sent back in the beginning of February. The Julia Green students are already composing their next batch.

Posted in Civil society, Education, SQR Features | No Comments »

Xinlong Village Mutual Aid Centre

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Xinlong Village lies near Jiulong Town, around 100 kilometres from the epicentre of the earthquake. In March 2009, the Beijing Rural Women’s Cultural Development Centre founded the Xinlong Village Mutual Aid Centre (XMAC; Chinese name: 九龙镇新龙村妇女互助中心) to develop the independence and self-sufficiency of local women through career education and literacy. When SQR visited the village last month, Liu Daqing, the Beijing Centre’s representative in Xinlong, emphasised the objectives of nurturing the career skills of women and its positive impact on the security of their families.

To date XMAC’s community projects have focused mainly on agricultural skills development. In 2009, they funded the purchase of rabbits and pig-fodder for the raising of livestock. With Liu Daqing’s help, the three full-time staff of XMAC established a group-purchasing system and acquired pigs for farming as well. With agricultural training organised by Ms. Liu’s team, the XMAC participants successfully raised, further bred and sold their livestock.

Other 2009 XMAC projects included embroidery training. In a building next to the Mutual Aid Centre, fifteen women skillfully hand-embroider cloth for sale. Such projects have strengthened the independence and self-sufficiency of women in the community. The Xinlong female participants have proudly supported their families through the profits of their livestock and embroidered goods.

To help cover its administration costs, the Beijing Centre helped XMAC to set up a small supermarket in Xinlong, which also houses a library designed to develop literacy levels amongst the women of the village. The books are divided roughly into two categories: reference material on agricultural practices, and novels. XMAC plans to expand its library collection in 2010 to include more agricultural resources and to further encourage literacy among Xinlong women. Liu Daqing commented, “Many women here cannot read Chinese characters or even write their name.” Prior to the end of the Beijing Centre’s incubation services in March 2010, she will help train a librarian to manage the collection. XMAC has also begun organising performing arts shows to give the women an outlet for their creativity, which could also motivate the goals of the literacy campaign through staging plays.

XMAC is currently looking to partner with a local organisation that can provide business and management training (to improve the supermarket’s operations) as well as direct funding for its library expansion and economic projects. The profits from the XMAC supermarket, run by a local couple out of the XMAC office, cover annual administration expenses, but are not enough to sustain the organisation’s upcoming projects. XMAC director Liu Minghui is confident that, based on last year’s successes and the enthusiasm of its members, the Xinlong Village Mutual Aid Centre will continue to grow and better serve the women of the village throughout 2010 and beyond.

Posted in NGO news, SQR Features | 2 Comments »

Heart Starting Point (Xin Qicheng), grassroots disabled rights organisation

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Huang Li was at home alone in Dujiangyan when the earthquake struck. Pinned under the rubble of her collapsed building, she remained trapped and undiscovered for 96 hours. She says the thought of her 9-year-old son losing his mother kept her alive for so long. Eventually, after four days of searching by local police, firefighters from Yunnan Province and volunteers, Ms. Huang was rescued and rushed to hospital. The extent of her injuries left doctors no choice but to amputate both of her legs and her left arm.

Through months of rehabilitation and treatment, Ms. Huang has retained her warmth and strength of spirit, and resolved to improve the lives of people with disabilities in China. With the support of Dujiangyan Disabled Persons’ Federation and the Department of Civil Affairs, she founded a disabled rights organisation called Heart Starting Point (HSP; their name in Chinese is Xin Qicheng: “xin” means “heart” and “qicheng” is “to begin a journey”). Her husband, Deng Ze Hong, gave up his popular out-of-town restaurant to be Ms. Huang’s full-time carer and co-director of HSP. He attends to every aspect of his wife’s life without complaint, despite suffering back strain from lifting her in and out of bed. “I’ve chosen the right guy,” says Ms. Huang, smiling. They are still living in temporary accommodation but expect to be back in their rebuilt home before the second anniversary of the disaster.

HSP was established to build on “the enormous support from all areas of society that helped us out of the shadow of fear and sorrow,” says Ms. Huang. “We hope we can show people, through our own experiences, that even though we are disabled, we still embrace life, and we can create wealth and value for this society.” It aims to support not only earthquake victims, but also people who were disabled before or since the disaster.

One of the primary missions of the organisation is to develop the means for disabled people to earn a living. So far they have opened a small workshop that trains people in the art of traditional Qiang Minority embroidery and other handicraft skills, setting up outlets as far away as Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shanghai to sell the work. There are now more than ten disabled people creating beautiful designs to support themselves.

One of the hard-working cross-stitchers is 18-year-old Meng Hongmei from nearby Hanwang Town. She lost both legs because of injuries sustained in the earthquake, causing not only physical but severe psychological distress. Slowly, through informal counselling from Huang Li and others similarly affected, she has grown in confidence, come to terms with her injuries, and has learnt to walk again with the use of artificial legs. She has made new friends through HSP and enjoys her new creative outlet immensely.

Other important aspects of HSP’s work are to encourage the adoption of disabled access and facilities in local businesses and public areas; to help other groups and organisations to provide medical and psychological assistance to disabled people in the area; and help allocate funding (either raised themselves or donated by other organisations) to those that need it most.

HSP has established a growing network of people with disabilities in Dujiangyan — almost 200 members and counting — providing a hub of information about services help available, mostly disseminated through home-visits as part of their community outreach.

With their strong desire to improve society, not only in terms of the needs of disabled people, but also to show that they are just as valuable members of their community as able-bodied people, HSP has an important and long-term mission ahead of it, and SQR hopes they continue to grow and make a strong contribution to social development.

The Heart Starting Point (心启程) team with two of the SQR staff

The Spirit of China NGO and the Santai School for Orphans

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

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.

Posted in NGO news, SQR Donation Request | No Comments »

Reconstruction progress in Yanyan Village, Qingchuan County

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

While SQR was delivering the school supplies to the children of Yanyan Village (岩堰村), we were able to get an overview of how to reconstruction of housing is going, eighteen months after the quake.

Yanyan is just one of over 270 villages in the county of Qingchuan. The county has a population of 250,000, around 220,000 of whom are in rural areas, and almost half lost their homes in the quake. The steep mountainsides on which three-quarters of the villages are located has made reconstruction particularly slow in this region.

Before the quake struck, the few hundred households that comprised the village were well spaced-out in the surroundings, with each family having an area of land around their house in which to keep animals or store food and possessions. Homes were often close to the land on which the villagers farmed.

Post-quake, housing in Yanyan has been centralised and rebuilt in two terraced rows either side of the very muddy through-road. Timber has been used for the two-storey frames, with un-reinforced bricks and mortar filling the wallspace. Neither level has insulation, due to the added expense this would bring to each family. The terraced construction has drastically reduced the personal outdoor storage space for each house, and means some villagers must travel greater distances to their farmland. However, it can be argued that there are greater security and social-community benefits to this type of layout.

As is generally the case in rural communities such as this, families are rebuilding their own houses, but the construction of the framework was completed by a professional contractor from Mianyang, paid for collectively by the villagers.

Government grants for home-rebuilding are dependent on the number of people in the house; in this village, grants range from 16,000—22,000 RMB. The grants are given out in installments according to the progress of construction, with the final 5,000 RMB only being delivered upon completion. The actual cost of rebuilding one family house here is in the region of 40,000 RMB, leaving the villagers no choice but to seek bank loans of amounts in excess of 20,000 RMB. Although from the exterior, the lower levels of some of the houses appear to be near completion, a look inside reveals cold, unplastered concrete walls and floors, starkly lit by bare bulbs hanging from ad hoc wiring.

Yanyan Village (岩堰村) housing reconstruction progress - 3

Yanyan Village (岩堰村) housing reconstruction progress - 4

Winter is almost upon them, temperatures are dropping considerably, but the houses are not yet completed and the through-road is still nothing but a muddy track. The temporary village school we visited has now closed due to having neither any form of heating nor any qualified teachers. The pre-school, Grade One and Grade Two children we provided with textbooks and other supplies have no choice but to study at home, their parents unable to afford to send them to the central school in Qima Town on top of their home-rebuilding costs.

Posted in Education, Home rebuilding, Living conditions, SQR Features | No Comments »

Cargill’s Chengdu-based staff raise 122,500RMB for SQR and CSA

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

The following is a translation of SQR Outreach Coordinator Li Yuanyuan’s original Chinese:

Cargill, an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products, has built 34 enterprises of either exclusively invested or joint venture in 20 provinces and cities in China. On December 20th, the third Cargill Seed Oil Festival grandly opened in Chengdu. Cargill took the opportunity to organise a fund-raising dinner party in support of SQR.

In the afternoon on December 21st, four volunteers from the South West University of Nationalities and I, accompanied by over 100 Cargill employees and clients went to the Dazhonghua Community Centre in Luoshui. When we arrived mid-afternoon, the local children joined us in games and activities. Because there were so many people involved, I divided them into two groups. One group stayed with the kids and the other group, led by the director of the community centre, Mr. Yang Yunxiu, went to visit the community.

“There are 995 families still living in the Dazhonghua Community Centre,” Mr. Yang explained, “and they are provided with facilities within the community, including a supermarket, a clinic, a barber shop and restaurants. The city of Shenzhen helped us to build the temporary houses so we could move in 3 months after the earthquake, and we have been living there since then. It is planned that before May 12 next year, we could move in the new lianzufang (cheaply-rented apartments designed for people in quake-hit areas).” He showed us a kitchen in a temporary house. “This kitchen shared by 10 families.”

Mr. Yang continued as we walked out of the temporary house, “Luoshui was one of the hardest-hit areas. 95% buildings collapsed during the earthquake, and all the businesses halted at the time. Now all the young people have gone to other places to make money, leaving the seniors and the kids at home in the town. The kids barely have any activities, so whenever you come to play with them, they are very, very happy.”

While we were visiting the temporary houses, the other group played happily with the kids in the recreational area. They enjoyed skipping rope, basketball and bowling. After 40 minutes, the two groups swapped activities. At half past four I gathered all the kids together so that all the people who joined this trip could give well-prepared presents to them.

We finished all the activities at the community centre and were on the way back to Chengdu around 5:30. Though we were tired and still had to spend a few hours on the road, we were satisfied: we now know better about the people affected by the earthquake and their conditions; we are happy that life is slowly improving and eager to know what else we can do for them in the future.

The dinner party sponsored by Cargill began at 7 o’clock at Daronghe restaurant. Two employees from Cargill took charge of the auction. Various things, including cloth roses made by the students of Weichuan Shuimo Middle School, baseball bats, footballs, CSA T-shirts and Cargill Olympics medals were auctioned for a total of 122,500 RMB. Our special thanks go to Grace and Simon from Cargill, who had worked hard to make sure that the auction could go smoothly.

On behalf of all the members of SQA and CSA, I would like to thank Cargill employees and clients who participated in the activity and the auction for their consistent support. We will make good use of the money, and let it reach the places which need it most.