Sichuan Quake Relief (SQR)

Update sent by Lucy to SQR volunteers at end of July 2008.  The second part of the post features an email sent 14th July to SQR volunteers.

With the help of three volunteers we were able to almost finish our NGO Newsletter (right now Bingbing is translating all the English info texts about the different NGOs). We’ll hope to send out the first edition of the newsletter this weekend.

Also we got several huge maps of the quake area as a goodbye present from their NGO, those will be very useful for the next NGO meeting.

The Library Project picked two schools of the schools SQR recommended, for their libraries (one is in Qingchuan and one in Tumenzhen).

SQR was invited to take part in the reconstruction mission of the British Chamber of Commerce and attend meetings with Sichuan, Chengdu, Mianzhu, Qingchuan, Wenchuan, Dujiangyan and Mianyang government (mayors and the like). It was definitely interesting information about future government plans (also to pass onto other NGOs) and a lot of business-card swapping. Also I met two managers who might be interested in donating some money to SQR (nothing sure yet).

Today I met with a Dutch lady who has collected over 30,000 RMB and wants help to spend it in the earthquake area, so I’m working on a plan how to split up that kind of money and use it for the tent schools we work with. The only condition she had was that she could tag along when we deliver the supplies and take pictures.

I also met with Maki from Sim’s Guesthouse, who is working on a fabulous map of the affected area.  She’s going to put the SQR logo (and some other NGOs logos) on the back of the map and also is getting some help from us in proofreading some info text on the affected area for the back of the map.

Last Friday Hong, Beate and Lynda (latter is the author of the “Good Grief” booklet, of which we brought around 1000 to different tent schools) came to Chengdu. SQR had arranged a trip to two tent schools in Jiulong for them. Bingbing took them to the schools in Jiulong, since I was still busy with the reconstruction mission, and Friday I arranged for them to tag along with Rainbow project to Luoshui. Also Mark interviewed Lynda for the SQR blog.  As I chatted with Lynda and her friends later we had the idea of possibly doing a fundraising event in the beginning of September, if possible in the Bookworm. The main idea was to let Lynda read her book, get some other people to do a slideshow about the affected area (I could do that or maybe we could get a professional photographer), maybe one of our volunteer teachers to talk about his experience, do some kind of raffles or charity auction, sell lots of our postcards and calendars etc. We could also make it into a welcome back to Chengdu thing (since quite a lot of expats will be coming home or newly arriving)… It’s still a work in progress. Any suggestions and great ideas please mail to me.

Saturday I hope to go to Qingchuan to bring up two foreign volunteers and supplies to a new school and a kindergarten.

Ashley Murray got me in touch with a school in the states who would possibly like to fundraise money for us and since they’d like to get their students involved I suggested they could do some drawings and cards for the kids in the affected area, which the next foreign volunteer teachers could deliver. I’m still waiting to hear back from them.

Next Thursday we’ll have another NGO meeting with the topics healthcare/psychological help/ hygiene. We need one or two volunteers to take minutes and also translators (the translators I can find easily but somebody to take useful minutes might be harder to find) – anybody interested?

Email to SQR volunteers 14th July 2008

We gave Leo 10,000 RMB to buy basic supplies for villages around Yingxiu. He was supposed to go there tomorrow but had to delay his trip due to heavy rainfall, as soon as he goes he’ll give us the receipts for the supplies he bought with our money and will also give me some pictures from his trip.

On Friday last week I went to Tumenzhen with Wenbo, Lydia and two filming guys from Shenzhen (George and Yimin). We delivered a whiteboard, toys and teaching material for several schools and then dropped off Lydia and Wenbo at two schools to stay there as volunteer teachers. Unfortunately Lydia twisted her ankle and so had to come back to Chengdu before she actually got to start classes. She is okay and back in Beijing now.

This Thursday I went to Qingchuan to bring the first couple of hundreds of our “back to school kits” (backpack filled with “good grief booklet”, pencil case, pen, pencil, eraser, pencil sharpener, two notebooks, candy and a small toy) and two foreign teachers (James and George) and one Chinese translator to the Huangpin Primary and Middle school. By the way those schoolkits are sponsored by a Belgian University who I’m in touch with, they generously donated for educational projects. The teachers were extremely grateful for our help and gave us a warm welcome (lots of baijiu included). James will stay in Qingchuan for 2 weeks George for 1. There were no roadblocks and the streets were in pretty good condition but one way takes about 5 hours (yes it was a long day).

On Saturday I brought an American doctor, his two kids and a Chinese counsellor and a box of toys up to one of the tent schools we are in touch with (in Tumenzhen- close to Mianzhu) to stay and teach there for at least one week maybe even two. We had to register at one of the local “tent offices” which unexpectedly only took 5 minutes, the whole trip went well. Wonderfully we didn’t have to pay any driver, since I talked to Leo about how expensive our driver to Qingchuan was and so he hooked us up with a very nice volunteer and his super comfy car, who brought us there for free (even insisted on paying the toll fee) and who made me promise to call him any time we need a free lift to the affected area (I already called him on this today- bet he didn’t expect to hear from me so soon).

Yesterday a volunteer teacher, called Saima, from Beichuan called me and I met with her and another teacher the same day. They are in charge of several tent schools in Beichuan and told me that the kids have literally nothing at the moment, they especially asked for books so I let them fill out the form that the library project gave me and I’m going to visit one of the schools on Monday (one day trip with the volunteer driver from Leo).  They also asked me for 250 back-to-school kits and possibly some toys (I’ll send another project proposal to the funding committee about that).

I’ve been emailing back and forth with Jenny and Tom from the library project and sent them infos about six schools that might be good locations for a library. They are very eager to get the project started so I hope to send you guys some news in the next week.

Lynda the author of “Good Grief” and Hong, her manager,have sent us almost 2000 copies of “Good Grief”, a booklet for kids that deals with the topic of how to cope with loss (translated into Chinese especially for the earthquake kids). I’ve been delivering those books to all the tent schools I’ve visited in the last week and also put one copy in each back-to-school kit. Lynda and Hong will be coming to Chengdu between July 25th and 27th.  I’ve already arranged a trip to Luoshui with the Rainbow Project for them and will probably also take them to one of “our” tentschools in Jiulong or Tumen.

The “back to school kits”, have been a big success so far and we’re going to buy some more for the school in Qingchuan and Beichuan.

Rebecca has been working tirelessly on getting in touch with all the NGOs so our first NGO Newsletter will hopefully be sent around soon. So, that’s pretty much all (not enough space for all info about the many other meetings we have had).