360 volunteers from China and abroad taught more than 4000 kids in 13 camps organised by SQR in various locations around the affected areas.
The SAME (Sports, Arts, Music, English) camps have been hugely oversubscribed, both in terms of those attending and in terms of volunteers, and have been a lot of fun, a lot of hard work and well worth the effort put in by all involved.
SQR sends huge thanks to all our volunteers who worked under difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions.
This summer in the quake zone, there have been large aftershocks, horrendous rock and mud slides, and many bridges and roads in the area were blocked. The extraordinary torrential rains caused 11,000 homes to collapse in the past week alone, and scores of local residents died. It is a timely reminder that, whilst incredible progress has been made in the reconstruction effort, there is still an enormous amount of work to be done in building up an effective infrastructure in this beautiful area, in terms of roads, bridges, schools, clinics, hospitals and other facilities.
All volunteers were camping, with no hot water available. To compensate, however, there was often a plentiful supply of warm buzzing mosquitoes (thanks to them for committing to the project), and heavy rains on tap pretty much permanently in recent weeks. The volunteers and kids showed great good humour and determination to enjoy themselves.
For the volunteers, life really was not easy at times, but they managed to keep the kids occupied and entertained for a week at a time, which is an achievement in any conditions at all. It is wonderful to see such a tremendous effort from so many people, from students on holidays, from people giving up time from work and their families to help out, from people travelling large distances from all over the country and all over the world to make a contribution. The SAME (Sports, Arts, Music, English) camps have made a difference.
Thanks to the hundreds of people who contacted SQR to volunteer, and thanks to those we said ‘no’ to as well – there were simply too many volunteers. To stay in the loop for future volunteering opportunities, email mark@sichuan-quake-relief.org to be included on the SQR newsletter mailing list.
If you took part in the camps and have stories and photos, please email mark@sichuan-quake-relief and we’ll get them up on our Flickr account (www.flickr.com/sichuanquakerelief) and on the SQR website (www.sichuan-quake-relief.org)
Thanks again
SQR
