The Amity Foundation

Workshop on safe drinking water

The urgent need for safe drinking water in China was the topic of a workshop organized by Amity and EED, the development agency of the German Protestant churches, at the end of May. More than 40 participants and speakers attended the two-day workshop, including Amity staff, faculty and students from Nanjing-based universities, experts on waste water treatment, Amity’s local partners from Yunnan, Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi, representatives from Beijing-based CANGO and environmental NGOs active in Wuhan, Hubei and Jiangsu provinces.

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The Participatory Approach: Amity Forum for project managers

The participatory approach in practice at the Forum

Amity sponsored a “Forum on Capacity Building for Project Managers”, which was held in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, earlier this month. More than 70 people attended the Forum, among them representatives of Peasants’ Associations, staff from local Amity project offices, the director of the Institute of History at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, Du Juan, the vice director of the Cangyuan Amity Village Development Association, Wei Meiying, and Amity’s assistant general secretary, He Wen. The Forum had two focus areas: firstly, the “participatory approach” used by Amity and its importance for the capacity building of project staff, and secondly, the preservation of cultural traditions in multi-ethnic Yunnan Province.

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Strategic planning training at the NGO Incubator

Strategic planning was the topic of a recent training session at the new Amity NGO Incubator in Nanjing. Mr. Cui Yazhou, a trainer at the Incubator, outlined the definition and importance of strategic planning before he discussed the specific strategic plans of several organisations and, with the participants, looked at what is crucial for their implementation and success. This training session laid the groundwork for participants’ own thinking about strategic planning at their respective organisations.

Strategic planning is quite a new and even strange concept for Chinese non-governmental organisations. Most of them have so far not done any strategic planning at all, and this has severely limited their ability to work as well as their potential to grow. Chinese NGOs have found it difficult to move beyond certain causes and, instead of being innovators, tend simply to follow the government’s lead. The widespread lack of strategic planning has led some observers to worry about the future of NGO work in China.

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Amity Workshop on “Sustainability of Drinking Water Projects”

By Theresa Carino

On November 10-12th 2009, the Amity Foundation held a Workshop on Drinking Water Projects in Nanning, Guangxi (see our earlier report). More than 30 participants from Guizhou, Guangxi, Beijing, Nanjing and Hong Kong attended the meeting. Organized in conjunction with Amity’s ongoing research on safe drinking water in China, the workshop had keynote speakers that included Mr. Jiang Bin from the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences, Prof. Zhao Fei Hong of Beijing and Ms. Li Gui Xing from the Guangxi Provincial Water Bureau.

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Amity/EED forum on drinking water

Earlier this month, Amity Hong Kong’s Dr. Theresa Carino presented the findings of her research into drinking-water projects at the “Amity/EED Drinking Water Projects Forum” in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Province. The two-day Forum, which was attended by more than 30 experts, academics and government officials, was hosted by Amity and EED, the development organisation of the German Protestant churches.

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SigAm bilingual deaf education conference

Bilingual deaf education is one of the most advanced concepts in special education world-wide. The Amity Foundation, in cooperation with the Norwegian Signo Foundation, has pioneered its adoption in China, first under a pilot project starting in 1996 and later on a broader basis. Today, bilingual deaf education is used at four special education facilities in Jiangsu Province: the Suzhou School for the Blind and Deaf, the Changzhou School for the Deaf, the Yangzhou Special Education School and the Zhenjiang Special Education Centre. Since 2006 this concept has spread further west, to the provinces of Guizhou and Sichuan.

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Organic Agriculture training course in Inner Mongolia

The Amity Foundation sponsored an organic agriculture training course which was held in Hohhot (the capital of Inner Mongolia) late last month. The three-day course was hosted by the Science and Technology Association of Inner Mongolia. Participants included members of the Science and Technology Association, representatives of farmers’ associations and representatives of farmers. They came from Dalate, Wulate, Wuchuan, Arong, Naiman, Hexigten, Duolun, Tuoketuo, Zhungge’er and Hohhot.

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Butler University Students Participated in Service-Learning

Butler University in the United States sent a group of nine students to Nanjing to participate in Amity’s Service-Learning Project. The team was led by one teacher. They taught English for three half days at the Mingguang Jindu School for the children of migrant workers, which is located in a suburb of Nanjing, and visited the Amity Printing Company as well as places of interest in Nanjing.

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Leadership Training Program Held in Hong Kong

In order to help with educational development of the western provinces, Amity has been working with Gansu and Guizhou Provincial Education Departments to organize Leadership Training Seminars for leaders from teacher-training schools in these two provinces. The principle of this program is that leaders from teacher-training schools learn from the modern educational concepts and methodology, take them back and work to improve the teaching and administration level of their schools. Consequently, the education in China’s west benefits.

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Diakonia Workshop: Amity and the Chinese Church

Amity’s work was presented during a workshop on diakonia at the Tao Fung Shan Christian Center in Hong Kong. The workshop was organized by the Department for Mission and Development of the Lutheran World Federation and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hong Kong (ELCHK). Participants from several Asian and European countries explored the future of diaconal ministries of the Lutheran Churches in Asia.

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