China

Blog Post:  Posted August 9, 2010, 8:25 am by Jordan Anderson

Welcoming Mercy Corps' newest friends

Country: China

Topics: Youth, Social Innovations, Global Engagement

While Mercy Corps works in dozens of far-flung locations across the world, we are proud to call the state of Oregon and the city of Portland home. It’s the place that nurtured the culture of innovation, collaboration, and optimism (with a touch of scrappiness) that we prize to this day.

As someone who grew up in this area, I’m especially touched that Mercy Corps is so welcomed and loved in this community. To be sure, the feeling is mutual, and our new building and Action Center right smack in the center of town demonstrate that love. But because our work tends to be in places far away, it’s a bit rare for us to work side-by-side with friends from all of the great organizations that call Oregon home.

So imagine my joy when the city and region did not hesitate to put on its work gloves and help us in late June, when we welcomed 18 emerging leaders from the All-China Youth Federation (ACYF) to town.

The federation links over fifty Chinese youth organizations with over 77,000 combined members, reaching over 300 million young people — a platform to improve the lives of massive numbers of youth both in China and internationally. Mercy Corps and ACYF enjoy a deep partnership, working together to improve the lives of youth in China, with ideas for more collaboration globally. This year’s delegation included a sprinkling of folks from youth agencies, government, journalism, state-run industry, and private enterprise.

As much as I was impressed by the talent and heart of our old friends here in Oregon, I was equally floored by the energy, accomplishment, and intellectual curiousity of our new friends from ACYF. It’s safe to say that their preparation and dedication brought out the best in everyone. We ended up learning as much from the delegates as they did from us!

The course itself works to build a new cadre of risk-taking leaders that can work more effectively with local communities, and innovatively address social problems. To help us, we called upon some of the region’s best and brightest to help us share some of our successes. Oregon is well-known for its pioneering environmental protections, such as a bottle recycling law and guaranteeing public ownership of the entire coastline, and Portland is a mecca for green industry and smart planning.

This year's program built on the success of last year's pilot program, adding several field visits and some extra time in the classroom. The delegates heard from renowned academics, including Portland State professors Carolyn McKnight and Ronald Tammen. This year's field visits drew the delegates even wider across the state. In Salem, delegates met with Secretary of State Kate Brown, along with state legislators Jefferson Smith and Brian Clem. In the Columbia River Gorge, the group met with members of the Warm Springs tribe, representatives of the Columbia River Gorge Commission, and other stakeholders. In Astoria, Shorebank Enterprise Cascadia provided practical examples of how economic development can be balanced with cultural and environmental protection. We also caught some sunny weather on the Oregon Coast — never guaranteed.

Here in Portland, the delegates attended a panel discussion at Metro, the Portland area's unique regional government. Metro is tasked, among other things, with managing the region’s growth. This was of great interest to people from a country that is undoubtedly growing, and they relished the opportunity to share ideas with a diverse and knowledgeable panel.

One of the group’s favorite visits took them to Portland YouthBuilders, an organization which helps young people complete their secondary education while learning construction and media production skills. Even while the conversation was bridged by interpreters, being able to hear directly from youth was a highlight for the delegates. While there are cultural differences (students with multiple piercings was new for them), the chance to sit face-to-face with American young people made clear how many shared challenges are faced in each country.

Panelists from the worlds of corporate social responsibility, social finance, and private philanthropy discussed how they partner with social entrepreneurs and foster social innovations. Local organizations, including Nike, New Seasons Market, and the Meyer Memorial Trust stepped up and their representatives helped greatly enrich the conversations.

In our survey and debrief, the delegates told us nearly unanimously that they came away from the program with new skills to bring to their work with youth in China, and a fundamentally changed perspective of the United States. We're confident that the program will serve to support smarter, more inclusive growth, and aid the blossoming of civil society in China.

At the end of the program, one of the delegates told me: “The more time we spend here, the more we realize that we have so much in common. We feel at home here.”

To me, that was the most satisfying thing I could have heard. It’s also clear to me that the incredible friends Mercy Corps enjoys here in Oregon are the reason that this place could feel like home to our new Chinese friends.

Blog Post:  Posted May 14, 2010, 2:31 am by Jeff Franklin

Young earthquake survivors in Qinghai start to tell their story

Country: China

Topics: Emergencies, Children

Sometimes it’s the intangibles that can make all the difference in healing after a disaster. In relief worker lingo, we sometimes refer to things like the trainings, capacity building and youth post-traumatic recovery work we do as the “software.” In the Tibetan Plateau province of Qinghai — where a devastating 7.1 magnitude earthquake rocked Yushu County on April 14 — Mercy Corps and our partners are bringing some of this software to a very special and unique group of survivors and teachers.

In contrast to the provision of food, water, new houses, schools and roads — the "hardware" — that’s being undertaken by the local government in Qinghai province, Mercy Corps’ Comfort for Kids program benefits are something you can’t simply touch and feel with your hands. This program reaches a little deeper below the surface.

Last weekend, our team was back on location in Yushu with our trainer from the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake Youth Psychosocial Program, introducing the "My Earthquake Story" workbook for child survivors and talking local teachers through the methodology of the program. The workbook allows a safe and personal space for young survivors to express their unique experience from the disaster — with spaces to draw and color, write about their losses, emotions and fears. This is indeed their very own earthquake story.

Last Saturday, 42 teachers attended our training session on the "My Earthquake Story" workbook methodology at the 3rd Primary School in Yushu Town. In addition to being introduced to the tools and methods, Mercy Corps’ team and trainers learned a great deal from the teachers about local Tibetan culture and what things in the workbook would need to be updated to suit the local context.

The idea is that, through this training and the workbook updates, the teachers will be ready to work with the 3,000 students once they return to the classroom after the summer break. The team wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Would the Tibetan teachers and youth accept this sort of exercise? What would work and what would not? With the blessing of the school principal, our team did a pilot run with two 5th grade classes on Sunday — many of these kids lost family members and friends in the quake.

What did we learn? We learned that youth the world over, while different in so many ways, all desire comfort and care in times of trauma and uncertainty. We learned what culturally-sensitive adjustments to the workbook will make the program even better. We learned that the passion and backing of the program by the local principles and partners makes all the difference.

Now it’s time to make the little tweaks and prepare for a the next, larger phase.

Blog Post:  Posted April 29, 2010, 8:10 pm by Liu Liangchuan

Not one missed

Country: China

Topics: Emergencies, Displacement

A coupon is a simple piece of paper, but a popular way for customers to exchange something in return for a product or service. Here in Yushu, coupons are helping us a lot in our work by reducing the risk of unfair distribution.

On the early morning of April 28, we sent two groups with 315 coupons to an area beside the Zaqu river — an area that's serving as a displaced earthquake survivors camp, where there are 220 households without organization or any camp leaders The number of households changes every day, so we decided to start distribution here with an estimated 315 coupons that families could exchange for hygiene kits.

Once we arrived at the camp, I started to realize that it was kind of dangerous, because almost every family had more than one Tibetan dog — a ferocious and very territorial dog. We were very careful to visit each household —one by one — to verify the number of family members and to tell them how the coupon should be used, as well as the time and place of distribution.

In total, we distributed 224 coupons. It was really tiring physically and nerve-wracking mentally. And then, when we thought we had finished work in that camp, a Tibetan lady came to tell us her family hadn’t received a coupon and that her tent was on the other side of the camp. At that time, I felt like a solder crossing a field of land mines again — but we had to come back with her to make sure.

We had to make sure that no one had been missed.

The distribution that followed that afternoon was very successful: we had an emergency line around the buffering area, with volunteers walking around to help facilitate, and one local staff to verify the coupons and make sure that everyone sign a hygiene kit receipt with their fingerprint.

One older lady was particularly happy to get her hygiene kit. She left the distribution area with her granddaughter, but not before telling our local volunteer this: “There was some distribution here before, and I am old enough to remember it. The way you did it today was very good. I didn’t need to run fast or carry anything too heavy."

I saw the older lady disappear back into the camp. The line became shorter and shorter. People with coupons came and got their hygiene kits quietly. Those who didn’t have coupons were politely refused because we had one rule: only those with coupons could receive kits, to be fair.

Today, April 29, our team has delivered 434 coupons to another earthquake displacement camp in Yushu Park. The distribution location will be near the entrance to park — and we're hoping that everyone will be on time, coupons in hand.

Blog Post:  Posted April 28, 2010, 9:33 pm by Liu Liangchuan

Two thousand hygiene kits unloaded in Yushu

Country: China

Topics: Emergencies, Displacement

The truck full of 2,000 hygiene kits — covered with dust and mud — at last arrived in Yushu on the evening of April 26. Their journey from Chengdu, the capital of neighboring Sichuan Province, totaled 1,200 kilometers and 50 hours. They crossed over seven mountains of Qinghai and the Tibetan plateau, all of which are more than 4000 meters (13,100 feet) tall.

The next day, we worked together with a local partner (an organized team of local Tibetans and volunteers) to unload 2,000 hygiene kits into a storage space on the ground, as there is no warehouse big and safe enough to store such huge quantity of goods — almost all buildings here are damaged by the quake. So we have to put it just outside of the camps where they will be distributed.

About 15 people joined in this effort, including local partners, volunteers, drivers and even cooks. Almost all available manpower has been mobilized to do this work. They come from different corners of this world: Kandez, Chengdu, Lhasa, France and Sweden.

The earthquake has brought them together — each of them have their own job and life outside of this response. They are singers, writers, managers and professionals — but when needed, they are doing simple labor in a efficient way in a place at the roof of the world.

Hygiene kits were carefully covered by waterproof sheeting after they were unloaded. The local team made a check-in voucher after spot-checking the containers according to the list. Every detail showed professional, clear understanding of the warehousing procedures presenting in Yue Yao's training early last week.

We don’t want to put all 2,000 packages into distribution at the same time, as the survivors' camps are separate and in different corners of the town. It’s too difficult to invite all of the families to one spot — such a procedure would easily cause disorder and desperate fighting among people. So we decided to distribute 2,000 in a more organized manner — it will take a little more time, but will ensure that the goods make it into the hands of people with real need.

This is how we are doing things differently here in Yushu.

Blog Post:  Posted April 26, 2010, 2:19 pm by Jeff Franklin

Hope and hygiene kits for China’s Qinghai quake zone

Country: China

Topics: Emergencies, Displacement

Please note: this is the fifth dispatch piece by Yue Yao, Program Manager with Mercy Corps China, who is currently in Qinghai. I am receiving and posting his notes while he's in the field.

Hope is the word that comes to mind now when I see Yushu County, the heaviest hit area from the April 14th tremor in Qinghai Province.

My recent mission to Yushu was both humbling and touching — everyone I met was so kind-hearted and helpful. From the moment I landed on the ground in Yushu the week before last until I left, I had continuous invitations to hitch rides with passionate volunteers, taxi drivers offering no-fare trips and other kindred spirits.

On the road from the capital city of Xining to Yushu County, you could find people all along the road offering free water and traditional Tibetan tea to those traveling to and from the disaster zone to help with relief efforts.

Apart from many national and international civil society groups operating in Yushu, people from all walks of life, various regions and agencies could all be seen lending a hand, chipping in to help those in need. During coordination meetings in our operational base, we met volunteers from Beijing, Sichuan and Tibet. We even met volunteers from the United States, France and Australia working extremely hard on the ground to offer their skills in order to reach the goal of urgent goods and service delivery for the survivors.

While the Chinese authorities have done a tremendous job in supplying the most urgent and vital goods since last week — such as food, water, shelter and warm clothing — more is needed. Mercy Corps has been invited to continue helping in relief efforts by providing much needed personal hygiene items to surviving families whose lives are on hold in the temporary emergency camps.

We are packing and shipping 2,000 hygiene kits to the more remote and overlooked areas from the disaster. Daily necessities that are so often overlooked, such as soap, washing detergent, tissues, towels, toothbrushes and toothpaste, hair brushes, underwear and storage containers; these simple items help people start to restore their sense of dignity, normalcy and self-care. We are working hard and rapidly to get these materials on the road and into the hands of the hopeful in Qinghai.

Just as sure as the sun comes up everyday to warm and light this snowy land, hope is starting to show its face again too.

Blog Post:  Posted April 23, 2010, 3:51 am by Jeff Franklin

Tears in Yushu – Chinese mourn one week after the earthquake

Country: China

Topics: Emergencies, Displacement

Please note: this is the fourth dispatch piece by Yue Yao, Program Manager with Mercy Corps China, who is currently in Qinghai. I am receiving and posting his notes while he's in the field.

At 10:00 a.m. on April 21st, just as the snow began to fall, Yushu County was crying.

We got up very early to prepare today’s work and attend the day of mourning in Jiegu town.

Many people were gathered in King Gesar Square, from local Tibetans and monks from various regions to humanitarian workers and civil servants. Everyone was so quiet, only the soft traditional Tibetan music playing in the background could be heard.

I followed our local partner colleagues to join a group of people standing near a bunch of emergency tents.

While the sky continued spouting snow, vehicles were blaring their horns as symbol of solidarity and Yushu County was crying, Qinghai Province was crying, China was crying the world was crying with us.

Blog Post:  Posted April 22, 2010, 3:49 am by Jeff Franklin

Distributing food supplies in the quake zone (with a great team)

Country: China

Topics: Emergencies, Displacement

Please note: this is the third dispatch piece by Yue Yao, Program Manager with Mercy Corps China, who is currently in Qinghai. I am receiving and posting his notes while he's in the field.

It was a big day today.

I helped our local partner with two of their emergency distributions, the first being in the morning. The heavy road traffic last night forced us to postpone the first distribution until this morning.

It was a small size food distribution targeting 120 people living in the Minzhu Lu temporary housing camp, which we assessed yesterday. Before the distribution took place, our local coordinator provided a very specific list of survivors, with family names and the number of people in each family. We also viewed information regarding the number of people these families lost in the earthquake.

This afternoon, we served 1,007 people living in a camp near Yushu Park. It was a very tough distribution, since the camp was not very well organized and lacked a camp leader to take charge of the event. We heard the community had a pretty desperate struggle earlier during another distribution. While this is completely understandable after an emergency, when survivors are desperate, we wanted to do things right. We were a little worried about how we could efficiently and safely distribute this load of much-needed food — our truck had roughly 9,000 vegetables, including potatoes, carrots and greens.

When we encountered damaged and crowded road conditions, we re-grouped and set our “Plan B” into action: we had to dig out a new path for our food supply truck. We managed to arrive in the camp and then we set up a secure distribution line with a large group of local survivors.

By 8:30 that evening, we had managed to complete the full distribution. It wasn’t until we had all gone back to our operating base that we realized how exhausted we were. Everyone said the same thing before lights out though — we did today this for 1,007 courageous survivors.

This is a great team.

Blog Post:  Posted April 21, 2010, 9:47 am by Jeff Franklin

Helping local organizations respond as best they can

Country: China

Topics: Emergencies

Please note: this is the second dispatch piece by Yue Yao, Program Manager with Mercy Corps China, who is currently in Qinghai. I am receiving and posting his notes while he's in the field.

Yushu County is normally a picturesque area, located in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, about 3,800 meters above sea level. However, it is also one of China’s nationally recognized “poverty counties,” and the horrific earthquake last week almost totally destroyed this beautiful little corner of the Tibetan region.

I have been deployed in Yushu to help respond to the earthquake with some local non-governmental organization (NGO) staff. These particular groups heading to Yushu though had no previous agency experience on disaster response and understandably had limited knowledge about how NGOs can operate in an emergency setting. So one of the first things Mercy Corps was able to do was provide emergency training for local teams.

On the third day after earthquake, I had arrived in Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province. There were many people from Qinghai, Tibet and the U.S. who’d already flooded into the local NGO office trying to work out a team response. As Mercy Corps' Disaster Management Capacity Building Program Manger, I was invited to do a quick emergency response training to help the attendees structure a response team and mechanism.

When in Yushu, the teams would have to face very difficult situations, much like in other big disasters. Introducing some of the basic and hands-on tools, such as the Sphere Standards (Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response) would become very useful in helping the various teams to operate.

I now see these teams putting some of the tools from Mercy Corps to use, from recording relief supplies received each day, to following Mercy Corps’ practices on community distribution. I am proud to be helping the local agencies become the best responders than can be.

Blog Post:  Posted April 20, 2010, 9:19 am by Jeff Franklin

Struggles in Qinghai — notes from the earthquake zone

Country: China

Topics: Water/Sanitation, Emergencies, Displacement

Please note: this piece was by Yue Yao, Program Manager with Mercy Corps China, who is currently in Qinghai. I am receiving and posting his notes while he's in the field. He sent in this dispatch on April 18. I will be submitting these entries as I receive updates from him.

Today is the fourth day since the devastating 7.1 Qinghai Earthquake took so many lives, livelihoods and homes. I was anxious to get out to Qinghai and managed to depart our office in Sichuan the other day for the nearly two-day journey by air and over rough terrain to Yushu County. In collaboration with a local non-governmental organization (NGO) operating in the quake zone, we were able to assess the damage and find ways to help some of the 100,000 now homeless victims. After setting up an emergency operating base just outside Jiegu town, I realized we really needed to get into the epicenter area and assess the damage situation first-hand.

My local NGO colleague and I attempted to hitch a ride with a pickup truck to Jiegu at noon on Sunday, but soon realized it was impossible to get into town by car. I jumped out of the back of the pickup and tried to direct traffic by myself, stopped a Jeep and finally asked a truck driver to move out of the way so we could return to our base to find alternative transportation.

People here are very friendly, even the policemen, so no offense was taken with my proactive approach. We finally managed to get around the heavy traffic by motorbike, but our first relief supply shipment was delayed for over 10 hours in reaching our base, despite the fact that the distance traveled was just few kilometers.

Our motorbike moved very slowly through all the displaced families, relief cargo trucks and emergency response personnel. We crossed over the Tongtian River (start of the famous Yellow River) and arrived at a small temporary camp that had just been set up. The Dang Dai Lu temporary camp was holding more than ten large Tibetan families, with about 120 people.

Since the camp was pretty close to the main road, it seemed they had tents and at least some basic food items on hand, yet when we talked to the elders and kids, they all mentioned more tents were needed since Tibetan families are often quite big. I discussed with my local NGO colleague the importance of having good coordination and an organized distribution mechanism in place to ensure the victims are helped as soon as possible. We planned to coordinate some emergency food distribution (with supplies from the local NGO) that night once the road cleared up.

Unfortunately, even after waiting until nearly midnight, the road was still jammed full of trucks and people and we could not get the shipment.

We went back out by motorbike to try and reach another big temporary camp we heard about, near Yushu Park. While our motorbike allowed us weave in and out of some vehicles, it was still slow going. We ended up going by foot instead. The living conditions in the Yushu Park camp we very rough. When I entered I noticed how huge the place was, with more than 5,000 people staying inside. My colleague and I walked into one tent after seeing a young lady struggling to care for her husband. He had injured his leg pretty badly during the quake, but they did not have any antibiotics to control infection. We felt so helpless at that moment and wished we’d had shipments of medical supplies to help out. We told the young woman we’d be back and bring medicine then.

We continued our walk through the camp and both soon recognized that there was no safe water resource there. People were collecting water from a small creek, which was heavily polluted and obviously full of bacteria, as there were also no public restroom/septic facilities in sight.

I have to stop this blog now, as more relief supplies just came in. Will send you more about Jiegu later.

Blog Post:  Posted April 14, 2010, 8:10 am by Roger Burks

Earthquake devastates China's Qinghai Province

Country: China

Topics: Emergencies, Displacement

Earlier today, a 6.9 earthquake struck one of China's westernmost provinces, killing at least 400 people and injuring thousands. Untold numbers of families are displaced and needing shelter as temperatures plummet in one of the country's most rugged areas.

Our team in China is in the earthquake region and joining a local organization to assess needs. Your donation to our China Earthquake Fund will help us mobilize efforts and help stricken communities.

Qinghai — a region on the Tibetan Plateau — borders Sichuan Province, where Mercy Corps responded to a deadly earthquake in 2008. Our continuing work in Sichuan has delivered critical assistance to families and provided trauma counseling for thousands of children who survived the devastation.

Please support our China Earthquake Fund to help meet the needs of survivors of this latest disaster. We will keep you updated on developing news.