Sichuan Earthquake Update

The Chinese Students & Scholars Association (CSSA-QMUL) at Queen Mary and Mother’s Bridge of Love (MBL) organized an On-Campus Fundraiser on the 20th, May, for the Help Children in China Quake project, which aims to help children and orphanages in the disaster area.

The one-day fundraising took place in front of the library of QMUL. Staff, students in Queen Mary and engineer workers working near by show great concern about the Chinese earthquake and donated generously. Chinese students donated elegant traditional Chinese handicraft, silk scarf and fine calligraphy tool kits as gifts, as well as for donation sale. But a lot of the donors kindly refused the expensive gifts. Instead, they happily took a simple handmade Green ribbon or Chinese knot as a memory.

1738.41 in GBP were collected in this event and has been sent to the China Education Development Foundation. Click here to view the receipt for the bank transfer.

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source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20080523TDY05312.htm

The Yomiuri Shimbun
(May. 23, 2008)

MIANYANG, China–A Chinese kindergarten teacher has opened a school at a camp in Mianyang, China, for children displaced by the recent earthquake that struck Sichuan Province.

Zhu Xia, 32, visited an area hit by the quake in the Anxian district, about 40 kilometers from the center of Mianyang, on Saturday to donate goods to quake evacuees.

While at a camp for displaced people, she noticed that children looked depressed, and were wandering around with nothing to do. She concluded that they were traumatized by the physical injuries they suffered in the quake, or because they had lost family members.

As Zhu’s kindergarten in Chengdu is currently closed due to the risk of aftershocks, she decided to offer classes to the children at the camp.

On Sunday, she read a picture book to a class of eight. On Monday, 30 children gathered for her class. By Tuesday, the number jumped to about 150.

The school, which is held outside, has been named “Yang Guang” (Sunshine) school. As there are no chairs or desks, the children attending Yang Guang sit on the ground, surrounded by tents set up for the evacuees.

When a group of Yomiuri Shimbun reporters covering the earthquake visited the school, children, who were taking an English class, shouted, “Happy!”

“Though the children were fearful of aftershocks, it now appears they feel safer by being with others of a similar age,” Zhu said.

Zhu returned to Chengdu on Wednesday, and volunteers from Hong Kong have taken over.

At the school, children are taught how to prevent diseases while they are living in the tents and how to react toward children who lost their parents in the disaster.

The school has made children in the district far happier, and adults look relieved when they drop by the school and see their children in class, residents said.

Zhao Lin, 11, who lost his parents in the earthquake, still looked depressed, but said, “Now I know I’m not alone.”

A policy memorandum published today by Ministry of Civil Affairs and Sichuan Provincial Government has highlighted the principles regarding the care of earthquake orphans. The priority is given to children’s relatives and parents who lost their children in the earthquake.

In short term, orphans and children with missing parents must be taken care by the local government, in separation with other victims. While in the process of identifying their parents, the authority must arrange the children to be taken care by social welfare organisation, temporary foster families or boarding schools in other areas of Sichuan with better conditions, or other provinces.

In long term, the momorandum has highlighted several principles in terms of child adoption and fostering. The priority will be given to children’s relatives, with the support of local government. If relatives can not be found, or are not able to support the child, those families who lost their children in the earthquake will be given the priority to adopt an orphan. The orphans can also be fostered by other families in China who are willing to help. The memorandum stresses that consent must be sought from the child if he or she is over 10 years old before being adopted or fostered. Some orphans may be taken by orphanages.

Wendy Wu

CEO, Mother Bridge of Love

04 June 2008

Children adopted from China are moved by the scenes of Sichuan earthquake and started to raise fund for the quake victims. Several organisations, like Half and Sky Foundation, Our Chinese Daughter Foundation, and Families with Children from China, New York Chapter, are also involved in earthquake relief fundraising.

A small body frozen in a moment, surrounded by rubble. A terrified, bleeding young girl carried on a stretcher. Sobbing mothers clutching photos of children lost to the earthquake in China.

“There for the grace of God go our daughters, and us,” said Sandi Janusch, who adopted 7-year-old Kaili from China as a baby.

Moved by images of the tragedy and pulled by an invisible red thread that — as Chinese legend holds — forever connects her to her daughter’s birth country, Janusch wanted to do something, anything, to help.

So she, Kaili and some friends baked. A lot. Together they raised $2,400 for relief efforts by making and selling gourmet fortune cookies — espresso and jasmine tea were among the specialty flavors sold eight to a decorated box — in Calgary, Canada.

Where there are Chinese girls adopted by parents halfway around the world, there are bake sales, garage sales, dance performances, memorial services and cash campaigns raising money for earthquake victims in the country that united their families.

The amounts raised are tiny in contrast to the nearly 69,000 people dead, estimated 18,000 missing and millions left homeless by the earthquake, but reaching out to their birth country is priceless to the girls and their families.

Read more here.

This set of pictures are dedicated to the brave people in Sichuan Earthquake. Passed to us by Liu Hong.

Please click the text or picture below to open the power point file.
Heros - Dedicated to the brave people in Sichuan Earthquake, 2008

TingTing sent one more drawing and her letter to children in Sichuan:

the-earthquake-dont-know-and-do-know

Our hearts have been sadden and touched by the recent earthquake in China .
. . especiallly sad to have lost so many school children.

Attached is a power-point presenation that was sent to us a few days
following the quake by one of our professor friends at Nanjing University.
It shows the feeling there.

Just want to share it with you.  And thanks becky, my dear US teacher when I was in nanjing University, for the sharing.

(The information for MBL from FanWu in USA.)

Chinese eager to adopt quake orphans By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN and CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writers

The children’s faces stare in somber black-and-white photos from newspapers and scribbled posters at relief camps, seeking their parents. Many will never find them.

As the first estimate of orphans - more than 4,000 - emerged Thursday from last week’s deadly earthquake, thousands of Chinese are rushing to offer their homes. “My husband and I would really like to adopt an earthquake orphan (0-3 years old),” Wang Liqin wrote on popular Web site Tianya.com in a forum that was already three pages long.

The high interest is another sign of China’s tremendous post-quake outpouring of sympathy, buoyed by rising prosperity. And it’s a surprising turnabout in a country in which government red-tape, poverty and traditional attitudes long combined to discourage adoption.

The new enthusiasm also means that Americans and other foreigners wanting to adopt may not have a chance. Officials estimate that the number of Chinese wanting to adopt the earthquake’s orphans may outnumber the orphans themselves.

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(source: sina, translated by Candice)

The speed for the connection of the video might be slow. The mandarin voiceover can be briefly translated as follows.

It is about a little hero named Lin Hao who is only 9 years old. When the earthquake happened, he was in the school with other 30 students. Only about 10 students escaped from the building. The little boy, who had escaped, went back to pulled out two other pupils and carried them to safety.

Now he is in Dujiangyan with his sister and we see no panic in his eyes. But till now he hasn’t found his parents yet. Wish good luck with him and wish he would find his mom and dad in the end.

The thread of life amid debris of destruction
By Fu Jing
Updated: 2008-05-21 07:14
(source:China Daily)

Children from Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit areas in Sichuan province, play a game in Jiuzhou Stadium in Mianyang city yesterday. A lot of people who lost their homes in the quake have taken shelter in the stadium. [China Daily]

BEICHUAN, Sichuan: Yang Debiao refuses to eat. “How can I when I have lost 60 family members and relatives in the quake?” says the 38-year-old. “How can I live without my wife? What will I tell my daughter when she asks where her mother is?”

Yang has just returned from Shanxi province where he worked in a mine.

His wife died when the cyber caf she used to work in collapsed. His nine-year-old daughter escaped miraculously, though hundreds of her schoolmates died when their school building collapsed.

Yang and Deng Xingyou, a retiree, are sitting on the rubble of building with their surviving relatives. Two bundles of clothes and quilts and a bottle of edible oil lie near them. Both of them returned to Beichuan county from a shelter in Mianyang city on Monday in the hope of finding their loved ones.

Though many people have been found alive under the debris of buildings after five, six or even seven days, the chance of finding one now is too remote.

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