Xi'an Alliance works to promote a spirit of volunteerism. Many student volunteers are trained to participate in public welfare activities and social work.

At 8:02 on April 20, 2013, a 7-magnitude earthquake hit Ya’an of Sichuan Province. 

On April 24, 2013, Shanxi 029 Public Welfare Service Center set off to the stricken areas with relief materials.  

On April 26, 2013, we met a few families in Tianquan County. They did not have any tents for 7 days, because they were not local or from villages. Their 2 sons went to stricken areas, and they had to stay with their grandson and daughter-in-law.

The Guizhou Dandelion Volunteer Teaching Center provides a professional platform for public welfare, attracting greater resources to poverty-stricken areas, improving education, and allowing more children from rural areas to receive care. 

In April, our visits to volunteer teaching sites are ongoing.  We hope all the children are healthy and growing. The following pictures show our visits:

Little Red Scarf provides financial support and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, they provide families with post-operative care and help the children sustain a healthy lifestyle

He was lying in the bed the first time we saw Fuchao. He is 17, and his face looked dark. A big pair of eyes were bloodshot. We knew he was seriously ill. According to his father, he had pneumonia when he was a baby, and his face turned purple. His parents knew something was wrong with his heart, but their family was too poor to afford the medical treatment. Fuchao could ride a bike when he was in the primary school, but he was unable to ride the bike when he grew up due to the lack of oxygen. The school is far away from his home, his mother suffers from mental problem and his father works in the city, so he had to drop out from school and help with some house chores. Unfortunately, he got a cerebral hemorrhage when he was 16. With a timely rescue, he survived, but left the family with heavy debts. Fuchao needed another surgery to repair his skull defect, but the family did not have any money for it.  

Rainbow Village Help Center is a TFish Strategic Member. It was established for the purpose of giving glasses to impoverished children.

Qujing Special Education School is under construction, but we still feel its warmth. The school lacks water due to droughts. The water supply lasts only 2-3 hours a day. There are 53 blind students and 403 deaf-mute students in the school, which covers primary, secondary and vocational education. 

There are 21 students in the class for the blind. 13 of them are low vision, not totally blind. Their vision got worse when they were growing up because they did not receive any treatment or correction.

Liu Hailin is 11, and he is in the class for the blind. His grandmother, father and uncle all have low vision. His eyes have not received any treatment or examination so far. 

The smiling girl is Liu Fuyuan. She lived in a remote village when she was a child. Her eyes inflamed, and her father used hydrogen peroxide to treat the inflammation, which caused the loss of function for the corneas. She became blind. Such cases are not rare in special education schools.  

Mianzhu Heart-to-Heart Charity Team is a non-governmental organization working with students from poverty-stricken families. 

At 8:02 on April 20, a 7-magnitude earthquake hit Lushan county of Ya’an city. Hundreds of people were killed by the quake. To better cooperate with the relief work at quake-hit area, Peng Jie and other 4 volunteers from Mianzhu Heart-to-Heart Volunteer Team arrived at Ya’an.

Peng Jie sold his camera and contributed the money to the relief fund. He flew from Tianjin to Chengdu directly and hurried off to Ya’an. The other 4 volunteers arrived at Ya’an on the 21st. The relief work at the moment was transiting from search-and-rescue to settlement. Peng Jie and volunteers started to distribute supplies at 3:00, April 22. At 9:00, Peng Jie and volunteers went to Shuanshi town, a more severely hit area, but they were asked to evacuate due to the mudslide. They will get in the town again when the road has been cleared. 

Delays for the professional relief team to arrive at the spot and the shortage of psychological comfort for the disaster-hit people are the problems at the quake-hit area. Peng Jie and his team accumulated much experience in medical relief and psychological counseling, so Heart-to-Heart Team responded immediately in these aspects. The team planned to provide voluntary services in Shuanshi town for 10 days. The roads are blocked so supplies cannot reach the spot on time. Now they had to pay all charges including communication, transportation, food and some basic relief equipment. They need about 5500 yuan.  

TFish remitted 6892 RMB ($1130) of relief fund to Mianzhu Heart-to-Heart on April 23. 

The Jingjieniao Home provides services for the mentally handicapped from poverty-stricken families. The organization is dedicated to improving their spirit and living standards and advocating for every disabled individual to have adequate access to social resources

Volunteers from the International Organization of Pediatric Dentistry visited the Home to check the teeth of the children here. They taught them how to maintain oral health. It was the first time many of the children saw a dentist. Thank you volunteers!

Original article written by Zhaohao Feng, translated by Maggie Li, edited by Yanyan Zhang