Roger Burks
Senior Writer
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China May 11, 2009 7:37PM
Christine: There for Sichuan's Survivors
Roger Burks
Senior Writer
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Photo: Raul Vasquez for Mercy Corps
When the Wenchuan earthquake toppled cities and displaced millions of families in Sichuan Province a year ago, people from around the world joined with the Chinese to help survivors. Mercy Corps pitched in right away, coordinating the response with local partners and loading trucks full of food, water and other emergency supplies. Our staff and volunteers — with timely, generous donations from our supporters — made a lifesaving difference from the beginning, even as aftershocks shook the area.
Christine Fu was on the ground in Sichuan soon after the disaster struck. A native of Orange County, California, Christine had left her job in Washington, DC to work for a grassroots Chinese NGO in partnership with Mercy Corps' Giving Leadership Opportunities to Young Women programme (Project GLOW). This programme, located one of China's poorest and most isolated regions, offers assistance to young women from the Yi ethnic minority group — a culture that's been ravaged by economic shifts, drug use and HIV/AIDS.
Shortly after the earthquake she was called to Chengdu, Sichuan's capital city, to steer a critical part of the emergency response.
Christine's work with Chinese youth gave her the experience to lead Mercy Corps' efforts to counsell children and help them recover from their trauma. She helped build that programme from scratch — and today, more than 1,600 teachers and psychologists have been trained in special methods to work with disaster-affected children.
Photo: Mercy Corps China
A Displacement Camp Wedding
Her affection for the people of Sichuan runs so deep that Christine chose to have her wedding in one of the province's biggest displacement camps. She wanted to share the joy of her special day with the survivors she'd come to admire. And although she wanted to keep it low-key, it became a celebration for the entire community: the mayor of a devastated nearby city ended up hosting a party in Christine's honor, and children assisted by Mercy Corps programmes sang during the ceremony.
"When I was looking at all the children with their families - looking up at us, wishing us happiness and 100 years of happy marriage — I got teary-eyed thinking that, after what these children faced and experienced, they could still carry so much hope and love for us," Christine said.
Our people define our mission. We don't just respond to emergencies, we stay as long as we're needed — and often become part of the community. Your support does so much more than rush supplies to survivors, it builds trusting relationships that rebuild lives.
China May 6, 2009 4:02PM
Healing the Future
Roger Burks
Senior Writer
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Photo: Norman Ng for Mercy Corps
So much depends on children. They're the pride and joy of their families, as well as eternal hope for a better future. There's perhaps no place in the world where this rings more true than China.
China's longstanding one-child policy makes children that much more precious to parents. And that made May 12, 2008 especially unbearable for so many.
On that day, the Wenchuan earthquake devastated wide swaths of Sichuan Province, toppling entire cities and killing nearly 70,000 people. Some of the most heart-wrenching tragedies occurred at schools when classrooms collapsed. In the aftermath, there was destruction, displacement and disbelief.
Mercy Corps responded immediately, sending staff to affected areas within hours of the disaster — and the generous donations of our supporters helped us in so many ways. We delivered truckloads of critical supplies such as water, noodles, milk and shelter items to survivors. We put together kits containing much-needed hygiene and household goods and distributed them to displaced families.
But our most important work was helping young survivors move past the tragedy and shock of loss. Within days of the earthquake, we launched two youth psychosocial programmes — Comfort for Kids and Moving Forward — that have helped support and counsell traumatized children. These two programmes trained more than 1,600 caregivers, such as teachers and psychologists, who continue serving the needs of thousands of young survivors.
We also provided educational support for these children at a time when they equated classrooms with fear of what had happened. We delivered school supplies to more than 9,000 children, as well as giving teachers the tools they needed and equipping new classrooms with essential items. This helped ease their return to learning.
Thank you for supporting this life-changing work.
China July 14, 2008 11:38PM
The World's Youngest Principal
Guo Xin
Program Manager/ Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Advisor, China
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Photo: Raul Vasquez for Mercy Corps
When I think about our first day distributing hygiene kits to displaced earthquake survivors, I will most remember the bravery of a 17-year-old school principal.
On July 4 — a grey, rainy day in Sichuan Province that accentuated the plight of families living in tents — I traveled with Mercy Corps colleagues to Jin Hua, a town near the earthquake's epicenter. The place suffered terribly: at least 79 students and 11 teachers died when the primary school collapsed. Today, with help from the Chinese government and local organisations including our partner China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA), survivors are doing the best they can to move on with their lives while awaiting more permanent housing.
We met 17-year-old Zhang Yong after we had unloaded the truck and begun passing out hygiene kits, which contained two weeks of supplies for families, including: cleaning products, first aid supplies, toothpaste and toothbrushes. As curious schoolchildren waited in line to pick up kits on behalf of their families, a bright-eyed young man came up to us.
"Do you remember me, Mercy Corps?" he asked. Some of us did. We had first made his acquaintance here on June 1 — Children's Day — as we were doing assessments in the area alongside CFPA. At that time, even though it had not even been a month since the earthquake struck, he had organised a small celebration for the village's displaced children. He and his friends had decorated the camp with little paper flowers and given away small toys, games and sweets that had been donated.
So here we were, back in Zhang Yong's village to help. Over the course of the day, we found out more about what it takes to be the world's youngest principal.
Before the earthquake, he was a student at one of the schools here in Jin Hua. That changed immediately in the disaster's aftermath: he was asked by displaced families to help create a temporary school. He gathered 15 volunteers, 13-17 years old, to get started. They salvaged a few desks, chairs, books and a whiteboard from the collapsed school and set up a new classroom in a long, narrow tent overlooking a rice paddy.
Within a few days' time, he went from tent to tent to ask parents if they'd like their children to attend classes. Soon, he'd registered 54 youth — from kindergartners to high school students — in the camp to attend the new school. Zhang Yong's documentation is thorough: names, ages, parents' information and original village are all carefully written down.
"Our goal is to keep these kids safe and on a routine, so they don't forget their studies or what life was like before the earthquake," he said.
Zhang Yong stands in between Mercy Corps Senior Vice-President Paul Dudley Hart (left) and Principal Ning Xingcai (right). Photo: Mercy Corps
Zhang Yong will soon return to a rebuilt school to continue his studies. But he said that, now, he understands teachers more than ever because he knows how difficult it is to manage students and run a school. He hopes to use this knowledge to contribute to the reconstruction of his hometown.
That day, we weren't the only admirers of the youngest principal in the world. One of those traveling with us for the day — 53-year-old school principal Ning Xingcai, who is also leading recovery and rebuilding efforts — gave him high praise.
"Who are you? You look very familiar," he said to Zhang Yong.
"I'm one of your students," Zhang Yong answered with a smile.
"Young man, you are great!" Ning Xingcai responded with pride. In this part of China, that's the best recognition that a teacher can offer a student.
It will take many months for earthquake-stricken villages and families to recover and rebuild. Through distribution of critical provisions, school supplies and restocking of school libraries, as well as psychological support for young survivors, Mercy Corps and its local partners are up to the task. Much of our work will happen in places like this: villages that have lost everything, but remain committed to the education of their children.
We're proud to work with determined, energetic individuals like Zhang Yong — local leaders who are full of resolve to not only rebuild, but also care for their communities when it's needed most.