Continuing with the NGO Spotlight Interview Series, the following is an interview of Miss Jorgenson, a representative from Operation Smile. You can access the original interview here.
-- T-Fish: The Transparent Fish is committed to providing free technical, marketing, fundraising, and management consulting services to help NGOs. Today, it’s our honor to have Miss Julia Jorgenson, the program development coordinator from Operation Smile. Miss Jorgenson: Hi my name is Julia Jorgenson, and I work for Operation Smile here in Beijing. I do development work for China. T-Fish: What made you go into this work? Miss Jorgenson: I started when I was young. My mother was very much into volunteering, so I started working with her when I was young. When I was 18, my first year in college, hurricane Katrina hit in New Orleans, and my brother and I both got involved in volunteering work. T-Fish: So how did you end up in Operation Smile? Miss Jorgenson: I just moved here to China just to find any sort of job. My brother works for Operation Smile as a program coordinator, so I met him and some other volunteers, and I went with them with their medical missions to India. That was my first experience with them.
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The following is an interview, conducted by the TFish staff, of the Xing Xing Yu organization in China, an NGO that serves children with autism. To view the original interview in Chinese, please click here.
-- T-Fish: Hello everyone, this is the Transparent Fish broadcasting office. Welcome to our 2nd interview in the NGO spotlight series. The Transparent Fish Fund is committed to providing free technology, marketing, and management consulting services to help NGOs raise funds and support for their projects. Today, it is our honor to have the executive officer of Xing Xing Yu, Mr. Sun Zhong Kai, here with us. T-Fish: What is autism? What is the current situation of autism among children in China? Mr. Sun: The problem with autistic people is that they do not know how to interact with other people. The three main symptoms include affected language, behavior, and a narrow range of interests. The reason for this problem is not well-known, and internationally the statistics show that 6 out of 1000 people have this problem, a relatively large group of people. We now have over 3000 families receiving training and consultations at Xing Xing Yu. _The Transparency Fish in China conducts interviews with various grassroots NGO's to gain a more thorough understanding of their activities and to highlight them to the public. The following is an edited transcript of TFish's first interview in its NGO Spotlight series, featuring China-Dolls (瓷娃娃).
-- TFish: The Transparent Fish Fund is committed to free technology support, marketing, fundraising and management consulting servies to help grassroot NGO's. We are honored to invite a representative of one such NGO, China-Dolls. Please welcome Mr. Chuntian Zhang and Ms. Ruihong Wei. Could you please briefly introduce yourselves? China-Dolls: Hello everyone, my name is Zhang Chuntian. I am responsible for publicity for China-Dolls. And my name is Wei Ruihong, and I work for the care services department in China-Dolls. TFish: I am aware that although China-Dolls was officially launched in 2008, Mr. Zhang began working on it in 2007. It has now been several years since then. Would you like to share some stories of your successes, as well as your challenges? China-Dolls: China-Dolls is still a very young organization, and it has experienced many hardships and difficulties. However, we have been elated with our progressing achievement. For example, one hundred children have received medical assistance from us, and nearly a hundred more have even received one on one donations, including those to advocate children's public education. However, we have faced several difficulties. For instance, we are in need of even more resources if we want to meet our patients' needs more quickly. [China Weekly 1-5-12] The only prerequisite for grassroots NGOs to receive free assistance from the Transparent Fish Lab is that they must play by its rules. NGOs must make public all their funding and expenditures, becoming financially transparent. The five staffers of the Transparent Fish Lab sit on the floor cross-legged during a meeting. Taken by reporter for China Weekly/ Pan Wang.
Yi Yang’s job is to “chat” with grassroots NGOs everyday. “We hope to provide you with free assistance, including a free texting platform, web promotion, marketing, staff training, and funding etc.” On the other end of the line, a hesitant voice carefully repeats the same question, “it’s really for free?” “Yes, but, you must promise to make your finances transparent, organizing and publishing your accounts online every month.” At this point, Yang gets a little nervous. In her experience, when the conversation gets this far, the other party may remain silent for a while, hang up the phone abruptly, or ask her “what do you really want?” She must patiently explain: she is not investigating them; if the NGOs accomplish financial transparency, it will improve their credibility, allowing them to garner more funding and support, why not? Yi Yang is a member of the Transparent Fish Lab. The man who founded and currently funds this organization is named Ping Chao. This condition (of financial transparency) to receive assistance is instigated by Chao. Chao told a reporter from China Weekly that he hopes to make the Transparent Fish Lab website a school for Chinese grassroots NGOs, helping them to form the habit of transparency through three years of training. As someone who funds more than a dozen NGOs in China, Chao does not care about other people’s opinions on his “conditional aid.” Some have asked him, is conditional aid still truly public service? He says, of course, transparent mechanisms allow the money to be delivered to those who need it most, “this is what’s most lacking in Chinese NGOs, and the most important.” [Every month, NGOs supported by the Transparent Fish Fund write updates on their latest activities and progress. This is a general update that covers a few of these NGOs] Congratulations to the six Commonwealth organizations, including the Sunflower Community, The Red Pencil Charity organization, Shalom Leprosy Compassion Ministry, Happy Checkers, Magnolia Community Center, and One Heart for their successful promotions. These organizations are partners of the Transparent Fish Fund. Please support, encourage and congratulate them! We look forward to sharing more of their stories.
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