I'd like to share with you what I learnt about the charity work carried out by foreigners in China.
I have to say I am extremely impressed by what they have done.
Name: Jonathan Hursh
From：USA
Education: University of South Alabama, International Studies
Organisation: Included
Website: http://included.org
Story: Jonathan Hursh came to China in 2003 on a scholarship program to study Mandarin in Beijing. During his stay, he observed the lack of attention and education of migrant children, whose parents were migrant workers from rural area. There are at least 200 million migrant children in Beijing, and 50 billion across the country ----- a group neglected by the government. Jonathan decided to do something. In early 2006, Jonathan launched INCLUDED, a nonprofit organization which seeks to provide free education and training for children living in migrant slums.
From only 2 people in a small apartment, INCLUDED has now expanded to an organisation with 40 staff and over 1,000 volunteers, its affiliates serve over 8,000 migrant children each year in over 10 community centres with presence in 5 countries. In 2008, Jonathan also launched a sister organization, the Migrant Resource Network to assist in building collaborative movement among organizations serving migrants in Asia and beyond.
Interview: http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/49470411-1766389547.html
Name: Eckart Lowe 卢安克
From：Germany
Website: http://weibo.com/84468522
Education: University of Fine Arts of Hamburg, Industrial Design
Story: In the early 1990s, Loewe traveled to China for the first time and became greatly interested in the country. In 1997, he started working as a volunteer teacher in different schools. He didn't consider himself as a professional teacher, but saw his work as a testing ground for unconventional teaching methods to help children find their own potential and influence them through actions.
Loewe has stayed at the only primary school in Ban Lie village for about seven years. When he first came here, people were not friendly to him.
Years later, Loewe has become the adult who is the closest to the children. He is often seen surrounded by groups of kids, and children like to hug him or even climb on his back. In a village where most young and middle-aged people are working in cities, Loewe is something of a father figure to the children.
Although he lives in an extremely poor area, 42-year-old Loewe is happy every day. He says he is doing what he really likes, and the joy of it brings him a great sense of satisfaction despite a poor material life.
Interview: http://tv.cntv.cn/video/C35518/0f5c9...d9938b75df9636
Name: Tony Day
From：UK
Organisation: Yellow River Soup Kitchen 黄河慈善厨房
Website: http://www.yellowrivercharity.com/
Story: Tony Day, 48, runs a charity kitchen in Xian and has offered free porridge and buns to thousands of homeless people since 2005.
Day was born in Preston, England, and used to be an electrical engineer with the British Royal Navy. After 10 years of service, he started a finance company and a real estate company.
Day, then a workaholic, put in 16 hours a day and soon made his fortune in England, owning a manor house and several cars. But after becoming tired of competing for profits and keeping up with the Joneses, Day took a bold step in 2002, when he sold his belongings and began traveling around the world.
On his way to India, Day passed through Xian, where he came across an old homeless woman asking passersby for money. Tony initially refused her begging, but he returned to the lady the next day and offered her a free meal. Although the lady turned down his offer, Tony said he made up his mind to help homeless people in Xian, especially after learning that the city didnt have an organization that regularly offer free food to the needy, like soup kitchens in Western countries.
His new effort began Dec. 18, 2005, in downtown Xian, where Day and two Australian friends gave porridge and 50 buns to 25 homeless people. After that day, he soon established the Yellow River Soup Kitchen and began offering homeless people free food outside a local Catholic church every Friday. The service expanded to twice a week in 2006 and to three times a week in April 2007.
Besides food, Days organization gives free haircuts, clothing and medical aids to the homeless. He also organizes volunteers to help residents and elementary students in poor countryside areas.
His team has brought donations to more than 45,000 people in poverty-stricken areas around the region. Last year, Day organized 181 such charitable projects.
So far, Day has spent 400,000 yuan (US$64,000) of his savings on the charitable efforts. He said the organization is primarily supported by volunteers and donations. More than 4,000 volunteers have worked for the kitchen since its inception in 2005, and about 300 of them help the organization on a regular basis.
Day lives in an urban village on the citys northern outskirts. Neither an air conditioner nor heating equipment is installed in his apartment. Day said he prefers a simple life.
Small and simple actions can make
big changes.
Tony Day
Interview: http://v.ifeng.com/documentary/socie...d4bd2042.shtml
Name: Andrea Pasinetti 潘勋卓
From：USA
Education: University of Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School, Public and International Affairs
Organisation: Teach for China
Website: http://www.tfchina.org
Story: Pasinetti studied at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. With a background in Chinese rural reform policies and experience as director of Princeton Universitys Interact Program, he turned his attention towards rural China during a year of study at Tsinghua University. While conducting research for his senior thesis, Andrea traveled to seven provinces in China and visited more than 300 schools. Observing the challenges faced by students in low-income Chinese schools inspired Andrea to make a difference for the country. He sold his family cherry manor, left Princeton and founded the China Education Initiative, which has since been renamed Teach For China.
Continually expanding, Teach for China has grown from 20 fellows in 2009 to over 220 staff in 2013 serving 33 thousand students in the country.
Interview: http://www.56.com/u86/v_ODQ3OTA2Mjc.html
Name: Sabriye Tenkerken
From：Germany
Education: Bonn University
Organisation: Blind without Borders
Website: http://www.braillewithoutborders.org/
Story: Sabriye lost her sight slowly as a child due to retinal disease, and her parents took her to many places so she would store up many visual memories, before becoming totally blind by the age of 13. She studied Central Asian Studies at Bonn University. In addition to Mongolian and modern Chinese, she studied modern and classical Tibetan in combination with Sociology and Philosophy.
In 1997, Sabriye travelled to Tibet alone in order to assess the situation of the blind there. Returning in 1998, she founded the Centre for the Blind in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, to educate blind people. Before, the blind had not been able to attend school.
The centre started with education of five children with Sabriye initially teaching the children herself as well as her duties of coordinator and advisor. She then became responsible for the training of native Tibetans as teachers and trainers for the blind and she selected and supervised all staff-members.
The project's progress was not without difficulties - local Tibetans would at times cheat Sabriye, taking advantage of her blindness; many European foundations did not offer Sabriye help believing that a girl who herself was blind could not be successful with such a project, and promised funds from a German association for the blind did not materialize. Sabriye was assisted by Paul Kronenberg who had been working for the Red Cross in Shigates. In 1998 Paul joined Sabriye in establishing the Project for the Blind, Tibet.
Interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTkxODQzNDI4.html
Name: Timothy Baker & Pam Baker
From：USA
Education:
Organisation: Sherpherd's Field Chindren's Village 牧羊地儿童村
Website: http://www.chinaorphans.org/
Story: Came to China about 20 years ago, Tim Baker and his wife never expected that they would stay long and do the charity work when they came to China. But things changed after the couple adopted their first daughter named Esther.
In 1995, the couple founded the Philip Hayden Foundation to raise money for China's orphans.
In 1999, a local businessman offered them houses to support their plan to start the orphanage.
Over the years, the American couple gradually built up their foundation and the orphanage, which is now the Shepherds Field, a compound of 11 buildings, including five dormitories, a school, a workshop and a clinic in Wu Qing near Beijing.
It is now housing about 70 children with 100 workers, including teachers, Chinese nannies, Western doctors, volunteers and interns.
All together almost 4000 disabled orphans with cleft lips, heart defects and brain damages, have received help, been cured, and taken care of here. 900 of them have been adopted, mostly by foreign families.
Interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTkxODQzNDQ4.html
Name: Lyn Gould & Alan Gould
From：UK
Education:
Organisation: Butterfly Children's Hospices
Website: http://www.butterflych.org/
In April 2010, the 61-year-old retired British nurse Lyn Gould and her husband Alan Gould founded the hospice in China, after visiting and volunteering at dozens of orphanages in the country for almost half a decade and meeting the rather "forward-thinking" Changsha No 1 Social Welfare Institute.
"Every life is valuable," said Lyn Gould. The line is also one of the "Values and Beliefs" put on the wall of the hospice's corridor.
Born in Exeter Devonshire, Britain, Lyn Gould became a nurse in 1970 and retired in 2005. At the age of eight, she watched the movie, The Inn of Sixth Happiness, featuring Ingrid Bergman, and thus nurtured her dream to pursue a similar course in China.
Despite her first trip to China in 1994 being more a "nightmare" than a dream, Lyn Gould kept coming to China since 2006, each trip for about three weeks, "learning to eat all kinds of food and using all kinds of toilet", and most importantly, learning the orphanage culture in the country by volunteering.
For the past three years, the hospice that has 13 rooms, 18 cots and is supported by 26 nannies has cared for a total of 70 children so far. All of them are transferred from the welfare institute, after doctors certified that they can only live for less than six months.
Interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjIxNjI0NDM2.html
Name: Chris Barden
From：USA
Education: Yale， Anthropology
Organisation: Little Adoption Shop, 领养小铺
Website: http://www.lingyangxiaopu.com
Story:Chris Barden came to China in 1998 and did some translation work for film productions. Despite the fact that he was graduated from Yale and was admitted to Harvard, the 45-year-old found passion in rescuing dogs in China. He now provides a shelter for almost 200 dogs in the outskirt of Beijing, and actively calls for animal rights in China.
Interview: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/o4W75PQ0Gvc/
Name: 12 French led by Hélène Hovasse
From: France
Organisation: 海上青焙坊 Shanghai Young Bakers
Website:http://www.shanghaiyoungbakers.com/
Shanghai Young Bakers started in 2008 as a social innovation project of the French Junior Economic Chamber of Shanghai. A team of 12 French friends, who had been living in China for a few years, wanted to give back to the country that had welcomed them.
Inspired by a social bakery in Vietnam, they discovered that the bakery market was booming in China as well, due to the rapid growth of bakeries and 4/5 stars hotels. However qualified bakers were still lacking, given that no French bakery training existed in China so far. Shanghai Young Bakers was thus created so that to equip the underprivileged with a skill that is needed on the job market.
The project was launched in February 2009 with the arrival of the 16 students who took part in Shanghai Young Bakers' first training session.
Initially six-months long, the training now lasts one year. In addition to bakery classes and practical internships, life skills and English classes have been added to further the graduates' career development opportunities. Since its inception, approximately 100 students have successfully graduated and a 6th batch is under way!
On 16th May 2010, the project was handed over to a charity with a longstanding history of effective social work in China, the Chiheng Foundation, in order to guarantee the programme's social mission and ensure its continued development on the long-term.
interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjA0NTI1Njg0.html
Name: Phillipe Jean George & Chris Lau
From: France & Malaysia
Organisation: ThinkAdoption
Website: http://e.weibo.com/thinkadoption?ref...vr%3D5%26b%3D1
Phillipe and Chris run an animal protection centre in Shanghai, which provides shelter for numerous street cats and dogs. Thinkadoption has rescued many cats and dogs from the meat market, and actively calls for animal rights in China.
interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTY5MTUzMTA0.html
I have to say I am extremely impressed by what they have done.
Name: Jonathan Hursh
From：USA
Education: University of South Alabama, International Studies
Organisation: Included
Website: http://included.org
Story: Jonathan Hursh came to China in 2003 on a scholarship program to study Mandarin in Beijing. During his stay, he observed the lack of attention and education of migrant children, whose parents were migrant workers from rural area. There are at least 200 million migrant children in Beijing, and 50 billion across the country ----- a group neglected by the government. Jonathan decided to do something. In early 2006, Jonathan launched INCLUDED, a nonprofit organization which seeks to provide free education and training for children living in migrant slums.
From only 2 people in a small apartment, INCLUDED has now expanded to an organisation with 40 staff and over 1,000 volunteers, its affiliates serve over 8,000 migrant children each year in over 10 community centres with presence in 5 countries. In 2008, Jonathan also launched a sister organization, the Migrant Resource Network to assist in building collaborative movement among organizations serving migrants in Asia and beyond.
Interview: http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/49470411-1766389547.html
Name: Eckart Lowe 卢安克
From：Germany
Website: http://weibo.com/84468522
Education: University of Fine Arts of Hamburg, Industrial Design
Story: In the early 1990s, Loewe traveled to China for the first time and became greatly interested in the country. In 1997, he started working as a volunteer teacher in different schools. He didn't consider himself as a professional teacher, but saw his work as a testing ground for unconventional teaching methods to help children find their own potential and influence them through actions.
Loewe has stayed at the only primary school in Ban Lie village for about seven years. When he first came here, people were not friendly to him.
Years later, Loewe has become the adult who is the closest to the children. He is often seen surrounded by groups of kids, and children like to hug him or even climb on his back. In a village where most young and middle-aged people are working in cities, Loewe is something of a father figure to the children.
Although he lives in an extremely poor area, 42-year-old Loewe is happy every day. He says he is doing what he really likes, and the joy of it brings him a great sense of satisfaction despite a poor material life.
Interview: http://tv.cntv.cn/video/C35518/0f5c9...d9938b75df9636
Name: Tony Day
From：UK
Organisation: Yellow River Soup Kitchen 黄河慈善厨房
Website: http://www.yellowrivercharity.com/
Story: Tony Day, 48, runs a charity kitchen in Xian and has offered free porridge and buns to thousands of homeless people since 2005.
Day was born in Preston, England, and used to be an electrical engineer with the British Royal Navy. After 10 years of service, he started a finance company and a real estate company.
Day, then a workaholic, put in 16 hours a day and soon made his fortune in England, owning a manor house and several cars. But after becoming tired of competing for profits and keeping up with the Joneses, Day took a bold step in 2002, when he sold his belongings and began traveling around the world.
On his way to India, Day passed through Xian, where he came across an old homeless woman asking passersby for money. Tony initially refused her begging, but he returned to the lady the next day and offered her a free meal. Although the lady turned down his offer, Tony said he made up his mind to help homeless people in Xian, especially after learning that the city didnt have an organization that regularly offer free food to the needy, like soup kitchens in Western countries.
His new effort began Dec. 18, 2005, in downtown Xian, where Day and two Australian friends gave porridge and 50 buns to 25 homeless people. After that day, he soon established the Yellow River Soup Kitchen and began offering homeless people free food outside a local Catholic church every Friday. The service expanded to twice a week in 2006 and to three times a week in April 2007.
Besides food, Days organization gives free haircuts, clothing and medical aids to the homeless. He also organizes volunteers to help residents and elementary students in poor countryside areas.
His team has brought donations to more than 45,000 people in poverty-stricken areas around the region. Last year, Day organized 181 such charitable projects.
So far, Day has spent 400,000 yuan (US$64,000) of his savings on the charitable efforts. He said the organization is primarily supported by volunteers and donations. More than 4,000 volunteers have worked for the kitchen since its inception in 2005, and about 300 of them help the organization on a regular basis.
Day lives in an urban village on the citys northern outskirts. Neither an air conditioner nor heating equipment is installed in his apartment. Day said he prefers a simple life.
Small and simple actions can make
big changes.
Tony Day
Interview: http://v.ifeng.com/documentary/socie...d4bd2042.shtml
Name: Andrea Pasinetti 潘勋卓
From：USA
Education: University of Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School, Public and International Affairs
Organisation: Teach for China
Website: http://www.tfchina.org
Story: Pasinetti studied at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. With a background in Chinese rural reform policies and experience as director of Princeton Universitys Interact Program, he turned his attention towards rural China during a year of study at Tsinghua University. While conducting research for his senior thesis, Andrea traveled to seven provinces in China and visited more than 300 schools. Observing the challenges faced by students in low-income Chinese schools inspired Andrea to make a difference for the country. He sold his family cherry manor, left Princeton and founded the China Education Initiative, which has since been renamed Teach For China.
Continually expanding, Teach for China has grown from 20 fellows in 2009 to over 220 staff in 2013 serving 33 thousand students in the country.
Interview: http://www.56.com/u86/v_ODQ3OTA2Mjc.html
Name: Sabriye Tenkerken
From：Germany
Education: Bonn University
Organisation: Blind without Borders
Website: http://www.braillewithoutborders.org/
Story: Sabriye lost her sight slowly as a child due to retinal disease, and her parents took her to many places so she would store up many visual memories, before becoming totally blind by the age of 13. She studied Central Asian Studies at Bonn University. In addition to Mongolian and modern Chinese, she studied modern and classical Tibetan in combination with Sociology and Philosophy.
In 1997, Sabriye travelled to Tibet alone in order to assess the situation of the blind there. Returning in 1998, she founded the Centre for the Blind in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, to educate blind people. Before, the blind had not been able to attend school.
The centre started with education of five children with Sabriye initially teaching the children herself as well as her duties of coordinator and advisor. She then became responsible for the training of native Tibetans as teachers and trainers for the blind and she selected and supervised all staff-members.
The project's progress was not without difficulties - local Tibetans would at times cheat Sabriye, taking advantage of her blindness; many European foundations did not offer Sabriye help believing that a girl who herself was blind could not be successful with such a project, and promised funds from a German association for the blind did not materialize. Sabriye was assisted by Paul Kronenberg who had been working for the Red Cross in Shigates. In 1998 Paul joined Sabriye in establishing the Project for the Blind, Tibet.
Interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTkxODQzNDI4.html
Name: Timothy Baker & Pam Baker
From：USA
Education:
Organisation: Sherpherd's Field Chindren's Village 牧羊地儿童村
Website: http://www.chinaorphans.org/
Story: Came to China about 20 years ago, Tim Baker and his wife never expected that they would stay long and do the charity work when they came to China. But things changed after the couple adopted their first daughter named Esther.
In 1995, the couple founded the Philip Hayden Foundation to raise money for China's orphans.
In 1999, a local businessman offered them houses to support their plan to start the orphanage.
Over the years, the American couple gradually built up their foundation and the orphanage, which is now the Shepherds Field, a compound of 11 buildings, including five dormitories, a school, a workshop and a clinic in Wu Qing near Beijing.
It is now housing about 70 children with 100 workers, including teachers, Chinese nannies, Western doctors, volunteers and interns.
All together almost 4000 disabled orphans with cleft lips, heart defects and brain damages, have received help, been cured, and taken care of here. 900 of them have been adopted, mostly by foreign families.
Interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTkxODQzNDQ4.html
Name: Lyn Gould & Alan Gould
From：UK
Education:
Organisation: Butterfly Children's Hospices
Website: http://www.butterflych.org/
In April 2010, the 61-year-old retired British nurse Lyn Gould and her husband Alan Gould founded the hospice in China, after visiting and volunteering at dozens of orphanages in the country for almost half a decade and meeting the rather "forward-thinking" Changsha No 1 Social Welfare Institute.
"Every life is valuable," said Lyn Gould. The line is also one of the "Values and Beliefs" put on the wall of the hospice's corridor.
Born in Exeter Devonshire, Britain, Lyn Gould became a nurse in 1970 and retired in 2005. At the age of eight, she watched the movie, The Inn of Sixth Happiness, featuring Ingrid Bergman, and thus nurtured her dream to pursue a similar course in China.
Despite her first trip to China in 1994 being more a "nightmare" than a dream, Lyn Gould kept coming to China since 2006, each trip for about three weeks, "learning to eat all kinds of food and using all kinds of toilet", and most importantly, learning the orphanage culture in the country by volunteering.
For the past three years, the hospice that has 13 rooms, 18 cots and is supported by 26 nannies has cared for a total of 70 children so far. All of them are transferred from the welfare institute, after doctors certified that they can only live for less than six months.
Interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjIxNjI0NDM2.html
Name: Chris Barden
From：USA
Education: Yale， Anthropology
Organisation: Little Adoption Shop, 领养小铺
Website: http://www.lingyangxiaopu.com
Story:Chris Barden came to China in 1998 and did some translation work for film productions. Despite the fact that he was graduated from Yale and was admitted to Harvard, the 45-year-old found passion in rescuing dogs in China. He now provides a shelter for almost 200 dogs in the outskirt of Beijing, and actively calls for animal rights in China.
Interview: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/o4W75PQ0Gvc/
Name: 12 French led by Hélène Hovasse
From: France
Organisation: 海上青焙坊 Shanghai Young Bakers
Website:http://www.shanghaiyoungbakers.com/
Shanghai Young Bakers started in 2008 as a social innovation project of the French Junior Economic Chamber of Shanghai. A team of 12 French friends, who had been living in China for a few years, wanted to give back to the country that had welcomed them.
Inspired by a social bakery in Vietnam, they discovered that the bakery market was booming in China as well, due to the rapid growth of bakeries and 4/5 stars hotels. However qualified bakers were still lacking, given that no French bakery training existed in China so far. Shanghai Young Bakers was thus created so that to equip the underprivileged with a skill that is needed on the job market.
The project was launched in February 2009 with the arrival of the 16 students who took part in Shanghai Young Bakers' first training session.
Initially six-months long, the training now lasts one year. In addition to bakery classes and practical internships, life skills and English classes have been added to further the graduates' career development opportunities. Since its inception, approximately 100 students have successfully graduated and a 6th batch is under way!
On 16th May 2010, the project was handed over to a charity with a longstanding history of effective social work in China, the Chiheng Foundation, in order to guarantee the programme's social mission and ensure its continued development on the long-term.
interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjA0NTI1Njg0.html
Name: Phillipe Jean George & Chris Lau
From: France & Malaysia
Organisation: ThinkAdoption
Website: http://e.weibo.com/thinkadoption?ref...vr%3D5%26b%3D1
Phillipe and Chris run an animal protection centre in Shanghai, which provides shelter for numerous street cats and dogs. Thinkadoption has rescued many cats and dogs from the meat market, and actively calls for animal rights in China.
interview: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTY5MTUzMTA0.html