The Amity Foundation

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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A severe sandstorm has swept northwestern China, killing three in Xinjiang and making post-earthquake relief work in Qinghai more difficult. “This is the worst sandstorm I have ever experienced in my whole life,” said Amity’s Tang Chuanfang. “It is so strong that it’s impossible to keep one’s eyes open. We can only see two or three meters in front of us. We have kept our masks on all day long. Some tents have been blown away, some people were injured. It feels like we’re being blown away by the gale.”

On Sunday, April 25, a memorial service was held at Mochou Church in Nanjing. During the service, Amity staffer Kou Weiwei presented Amity’s relief work, which found great resonance among the congregation. At the end of the service, churchgoers donated a total of CNY 102,600 (ca. US$ 15,000) to support Amity’s relief work. Churches in Wuxi and Kunshan in southern Jiangsu Province have made generous donations, too, totaling CNY 70,000 (ca. US$ 10,250).

Amity’s relief work continues. In Xining, the Amity team finished purchasing goods for the 6th batch of relief materials, which will start its journey to Yushu tomorrow (27 April).

Service learning students at the Amity Printing Company

Miku Kanamori and Kimie Hoshino from Japan were among the participants in the most recent round of Amity’s service learning program. They sent us their reflections.

I had many experiences through this service learning activity. All I did I found valuable and enjoyable. My main activities were translation at the John Rabe Memorial Hall and playing with disabled children at the Amity Home of Blessings.

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The church in China has long drawn on the assistance of lay people to make up for the lack of pastors and other professional church personnel. Rural churches, above all, depend heavily on volunteers, who help with church ministry in remote villages where they work as lay preachers at so-called local preaching points.

Church volunteers are no less active in the cities where volunteering church-goers have been busy spreading the gospel among colleagues and neighbors since the 1980s. A great part of church growth over the last 30 years owes its success to these church volunteer activities.

Until recently, both urban and rural church volunteers mainly focused on the spiritual growth of the believers and on sharing the gospel with non-believers. Little attention was given to social needs inside the congregations and even less so to social ills beyond the church walls.

In recent years, however, volunteers in the church have been expanding their ambitions. Besides helping people grow spiritually, volunteers are set to become more committed to assisting people with dire material needs or with disabilities. There is now a much greater consensus among church-goers in China that being a Christian and living your faith can also mean doing social work.

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Shirley Paterson, an autism expert from Scotland, led a workshop for parents and teachers at the Amity Children’s Centre to mark World Autism Awareness Day on 2 April. Participants discussed several issues relating to the behaviour of autistic children. Ms. Paterson is an educational psychologist specialising in developmentally disabled and autistic children. Prior to the workshop, she had spent two weeks observing the children at the Centre and working closely with the teachers.

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In the run-up to Qingming Festival (“Tomb Sweeping Day”), one of the major holidays in the Chinese lunar calendar and this year falling on the Tuesday after Easter, clients of the Amity Bakery have been selling baked goods at Gongde Park in the Yuhua neighbourhood of Nanjing. The stall of the Bakery at the entrance to the park drew big crowds of people as the young people from the Bakery, supported by their parents, offered their products. All the proceeds from the sale are going to the Social Welfare Office of Nanjing City.

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A week ago, a volunteer training conference of the Jiangsu Christian Charity Fund was held at the Amity Foundation office. 35 church workers from 22 congregations in Jiangsu Province took part in it. The volunteer training conference put particular emphasis on raising awareness for opportunities and the need for social services done by church volunteers. Topics discussed included Biblical and theological foundations of volunteer work as well as basic methods and concepts of social work.

In January, Deloitte China appealed to all its branches to donate study materials, toys and books for students’ use after class for the benefit of students at Yuwangmiao Primary School (Shaanxi Province). Employees at the different branches contributed eagerly, and donations started piling up around Spring Festival. By the end of February, a total of 17 boxes had been sent on to the school. They contained more than 600 books as well as stationary, toys, sports equipment and clothes.

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A few days ago, the Amity Bakery welcomed a group of children – students from Yuhua Foreign Language School, Wulao Village Primary School, Youfu Street West Primary School, Dangu Street Primary School and Zhiyuan Foreign Language School. The youngest of them was ten, and they knew exactly what they wanted: learn how to make cookies.

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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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