The Amity Foundation
environment
Last phase of mudslide emergency relief operation
The Amity emergency relief operation is drawing to a close, but Amity continues to work with local partners and victims of the mudslide that took place on August 8th 2010 in Zhouqu, Gansu Province. Now that we are approaching the mid-autumn festival, an important day for families to get together, we remember the victims who lost their lives in the landslide and the rescue and relief workers who are still on site.
Amity has continued to dispatch rescue crews and relief materials to Zhouqu County, Gansu Province. The sixth batch of relief materials arrived on August 27th, with supplies allocated and delivered to 1,648 households in seven villages, with the assistance of local partners and volunteers. On August 28th, the seventh batch of relief materials reached Huixian County with all supplies handed out the next day. Amity staff, assisted by the Director of the Bureau for Civil Affairs of Huixian County, delivered the supplies to 660 households in Jiangluo and three other towns.
The supplies provided by Amity were warmly welcomed by local villagers because of their practicality. In the process of procurement, special attention was paid to obtain articles for daily use and medical supplies. According to Amity’s criterion for allocation, each family would receive one bag of rice, one bag of flour, one can of cooking oil, two winter coats, five bags of sanitary towels, one set of stoves and cookers. The relief materials supplied by Amity reached a total amount of 16.5 tons of rice, 16.5 tons of flour, 3,300 kilos of cooking oil, 275 boxes of sanitary towels, 1,320 winter coats, 660 sets of stoves and cookers. Also an additional 240 sets of stoves are schedules for later delivery.
A warm thank you to all our friends who have been extending support to the victims of the mudslide through Amity.
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.
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.
Copenhagen and Amity’s environmental protection work
Delegates from more than 180 countries are currently meeting in Copenhagen to discuss climate change and, it is hoped, agree on measures to fight it and reduce its impact. One big issue discussed at the meeting is the relationship between climate protection and the worldwide fight against poverty.
The Amity Foundation has worked in both these areas for many years. Below are some facts and figures about our environmental protection work.
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.
Higher incomes and a better environment in Inner Mongolia
Grasslands have been deteriorating for decades
Free-roaming sheep nibbling away at the last sprouts of a dying meadow are one reason why people in the grasslands of Wulate Middle Banner, a poor county in Inner Mongolia, are in danger of losing their livelihoods in the future. The grasslands of central Inner Mongolia, once famed to be a vast expanse of waving grass sweeping as far as the horizon, are deteriorating into an inhospitable waste land at a frightening speed. If nothing is done to stop the spread of the desert, the dying ecosystem will cause a stream environmental refugees fleeing from an area four times the size of Germany.
Amity solar stove cooking contest in Qinghai
A stew of potatoes and beef, sweet-and-sour cabbage, deep-fried chicken fillet … Women from Chaergoumen Village in Huzhu County, Qinghai, put their cooking skills on display. A cooking contest, initiated by Amity’s local partner organisation, was held here in April and a wide variety of mouthwatering dishes were cooked on solar and biogas stoves. Fifty villagers and thirty students from the local school took part in the contest. Its aim was to promote the use of environmentally friendly stoves by families in rural Qinghai.
Biogas in Qinghai – the story of a great success
Zhou Xianlong from Chindu County in Qinghai used to be a humble villager like everybody else; now, all of a sudden, he’s a star. How did that happen? Since the Zhou family started using biogas and growing vegetables in a big greenhouse, things have been getting better for them by the day. Neighbours look on the Zhous with envy and quite a few important people have visited to look around and interview the family.
Modernization Qinghai Style
During a project visit to the Tibetan Autonomous Region in Qinghai Beate Engelen from the Hong Kong office discovered what modernization and a good future meant to the Tibetans in a mountain village of the grasslands. What she heard surprised her.
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