The Amity Foundation

Earthquake photo exhibition in Nanjing

A travelling photo exhibition, titled “Reach out for reconstruction, let love go on” and “Field of Hope”, will open tomorrow, 1 May, in Nanjing. The exhibition, initiated by the Amity Foundation and the Nanjing City Volunteer Association, marks the 1st anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Sichuan on 12 May 2008. It will at first be on display at Nanjing Library and Pioneer Bookstore. After May Day it will travel on to the Suning Milky Way store, the drum tower campus and Pukou campus of Nanjing University, Nanjing Foreign Language School, the High School Affiliated with Nanjing Normal University and Jinling Middle School. It is advertised in a video clip shown at some 700 locations and will be on display until the end of May.

Watch a picture gallery here.

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Students as teachers: a letter from Gansu

Gary Macdonald with his student's students

What do students of Amity teachers do during holidays, when there are no classes? Some of them go back to their home villages to work as English tutors.  Gary Macdonald, who has been an Amity teacher for many years, spent the Lunar New Year holiday in a small village in Gansu Province. He has sent this letter:

During the Lunar New Year holiday I was the guest of one of my students in his small village. Mali Village (马力村) is one of many small communities hidden deep in the folds of mountain terrain. Patches of tired soil serve the continuing generations of subsistence farmers. There, the beauty of nature may well mask the reality of poverty and daily struggle familiar to its inhabitants.

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International students teach kindergarten children

Students from Suzhou Singapore International School (SSIS) visited Henancun School in Nanjing, a school for migrant workers’ children that Amity has been supporting since 2004. The group of 18 students and 2 supervisors stayed with kids aged between 4 and 6 in kindergarten class for a whole day in March and had interactive activities in English. The students, who are from the U.S.A., Singapore, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, were well-prepared with songs, games, and small teaching items. They showed great care, skill, patience and creativity during the activities. According to Diwen Goh, a 15-year-old leader of the group, they had practiced several times in local kindergartens in Suzhou. John Miskelly, a maths teacher from SSIS who served as program supervisor, said it was great to see the students so dedicated in this mission, and expected the students could understand the work of teachers better.

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Free check-ups for women in Gansu

At a gynaecologist's clinic in rural Gansu

Women’s health in rural China typically focuses on pregnancy and birth control. Except for reproductive-health reasons, women go to see a doctor only when they get seriously ill – not earlier.

That health check-ups for women can prevent diseases is widely unknown in today’s rural China. Now, time has come for preventive healthcare to be introduced to women in some rural communities in Gansu Province. Amity has provided funds and expertise for over 16,000 women in Lintao County to be screened for health problems and treated, mostly free of charge, if irregularities are found.

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World Autism Day training session

Amity and the Hong Kong-based Heep Hong Society held a training session for teachers to autistic children in Nanjing to mark “World Autism Day” on 2 April. The event attracted experts from more than 30 institutions in the provinces of Zhejiang, Shandong, Fujian and Jiangsu, the city of Shanghai and other places. Over 100 people attended the training session.

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Amity Teachers Conference and the Summer Tutoring Program

On January 12-17, Amity held its 2009 Amity Teachers Winter Conference in Lanzhou, Gansu Province. January in Lanzhou presented us with chilly but friendly sunny days, so we were able to keep a traditional but always welcome part of our Winter Conference: Our group made a one-day field trip to Dingxi, a neighbouring city to Lanzhou, to visit Amity’s community-based projects.

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New projects launched in Guizhou

Amity and EED, an aid agency of the German Protestant churches, are sponsoring a new integrated development project, which was formally launched in Guanghua Village, Bijie Prefecture, Guizhou Province in March. The project aims at ensuring food safety, boosting agricultural yields, raising ordinary people’s productivity and living standards while protecting the environment, and strengthening local communities’ integrated service capability. Improving the natural conditions and building people’s capacity will ultimately lead to sustainable development of both individuals and society as a whole, of the economy and the environment.

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