The Amity Foundation

Basketballs for children of migrant workers

In April, Amity received a donation of 200 basketballs. The donor remained anonymous and could not be contacted in any way. Amity passed the balls on to five schools for the children of migrant workers in Nanjing. Amity hopes the balls will be put to good use at the schools, both during P.E. classes and during students’ spare time, and would like to express its gratitude to the generous anonymous donor.

New office building to be completed early next year

On 16 May a groundbreaking ceremony was held at Amity Foundation headquarters in Nanjing for a new office building. Bishop K. H. Ting, TSPM committee chairman and Amity director Rev. Deng Fucun, high-ranking political leaders from Jiangsu Province and Nanjing City, participants of the Amity Round Table, representatives of Amity’s local partners and other guests attended the ceremony.

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Coordination conference for orphans projects

Amity held a conference concerned with projects for rural orphans from April 25 to 27. Delegates from Amity’s local partners in 7 different provinces (Ningxia, Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Jiangsu, Sichuan and Guizhou) attended the conference, which aimed at improving the coordination of Amity’s rural orphans projects.

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Message from the General Secretary

The year 2006 was a memorable one for Amity. On October 17th, it received the prestigious China Poverty Eradication Award in the “organization” category. Given by the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CPEA), the award recognized Amity’s “achievements in benefiting the poor.” It was an affirmation of the poverty alleviation work we have done for 21 years and opens a new chapter in Amity’s attempts to spread compassion and wealth in people’s lives. In announcing the award, the CPEA cited Amity’s “clear aims, pioneering spirit, high-quality corporate governance, professionalism, good reputation and the strong impact of its work.”

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Health education among migrant workers

Yurun Group, a Nanjing-based big food company, hosted the first “Amity Foundation Health Education Seminar” on 21 March 2007. This seminar aims to tackle insufficient knowledge about infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and sexually transmitted diseases among workers who live and work in the Nanjing region without being officially registered residents. This training seminar was supported by Nanjing Xiaoshi Hospital, China Southeast University and Nanjing Medical University.

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Report 2006: Hong Kong Office

The main task of the Amity office in Hong Kong (HKO) is to make Amity’s contributions to China’s social development known overseas and in Hong Kong and to expand the links between Amity and the ecumenical community. Through its publicity and networking activities, the Amity Hong Kong office encourages the ecumenical sharing of resources and generates more support for Amity’s work among Christians and non-Christians alike.

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Graduate students’ donation helps blind children

Qian Yanfeng, Pang Zhaohua and Huo Jianhua, three graduate students from the Foreign Language Department of Nanjing University, visited Amity headquarters on 10 April 2007. They donated the money they had earned as translators to the Scholarship for Blind and Deaf Students from Poor Families, which helps blind children to attend school.

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Amity and BASF China cooperate again

One hundred poor students will continue their education through a new project. The “Sunflower Seeds” project, which was set up by Amity and BASF (China) Ltd., helps to make the dream of a hundred poor elementary school students in Guangxi and Anhui come true. They had been on the brink of dropping out of school but now they will be able to go on with their schooling this summer. The project was kickstarted during a ceremony on 12 March 2007, which was attended by BASF’s chairman Guan Zhihua and Amity Associate General Secretary Zhang Liwei.

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International AIDS Conference in Henan

Amity held a 2-week-long conference on AIDS prevention and education, titled “God Breaks the Silence – The Churches and HIV/AIDS”, in January and February 2007. It was co-organised with United Evangelical Mission (Germany, Africa and Asia) and Mission 21 (Switzerland). Amity has been involved in AIDS work for almost 11 years. Against the backdrop of past developments which give little cause for optimism, Amity has emphasised exploring new ideas to deal with the situation in China. People engaged in AIDS work in Germany, Tanzania, Namibia, Cameroon, Indonesia, the Philippines and China were invited to share their insights, experiences and ideas with each other.

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Strategic Planning Conference

The Amity Foundation held a strategic planning conference from 10 to 12 February 2007. Almost everybody working for Amity at its Nanjing headquarters was present, and experts from the Shanghai-based Yinglü Non-Profit Organisation Development Centre had been invited to provide third-party evaluation. Amity’s past and present were briefly analysed but the conference focused on looking ahead and starting to develop a strategy for the next 4 years of Amity’s work.

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