Half the Sky: Olympic torch, Building schools.
> From: Jenny Bowen <jenny@halfthesky.org>
> Subject: Half the Sky Earthquake Update - June 10
> To: "Grant Balfour" <xxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxx.xxx>
> Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2008, 6:21 AM
> Dear Friends,
>
> Last October – what seems like a lifetime ago – many of
> you voted online
> and made it possible for me to win the Lenovo/China Daily
> competition to
> become one of eight foreigners living in China to carry the
> Olympic Torch.
> My goal was to run with children from our HTS programs on
> behalf of all of
> China’s orphaned children. As fate or happenstance would
> have it, my bit
> of Torch history is now scheduled to take place in Wanzhou,
> Chongqing on
> June 16 – just next door to earthquake-battered Sichuan.
>
> After the quake, I informed the Beijing Olympic Committee
> (BOCOG) that I
> would dedicate my run to the orphaned children of Sichuan.
> For security
> reasons, BOCOG will not let me run WITH the children, but
> they will
> certainly let me run FOR them. And BOCOG will let the
> children urge me
> along from the sidelines. So, if all goes well, 50
> preschoolers from the
> Chengdu and Chongqing orphanages will be with me in
> Wanzhou. I don’t know
> if this will be televised but I promised to let you all
> know when/if our
> run would happen. You can be sure we’ll take lots of
> pictures!
>
> Since I last wrote, we’ve been working toward developing
> a more
> well-defined plan for addressing the emotional needs of so
> many thousands
> of traumatized children. We know we can’t help them all,
> but we are making
> certain that, using the resources you are providing us, we
> will maximize
> our effectiveness.
>
> Under the guidance of trauma experts from National Center
> for School
> Trauma and Bereavement and volunteer pediatric
> psychologists from China,
> the US and Canada, our field staff has been training
> caregivers in
> shelters and camps and talking with many, many children.
> What we have
> learned has informed our long-term plans, which already
> have tentative
> approval from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
>
> In the next couple of months, with your help, we will be
> creating giant
> tent “Big Top” Children’s Centers in temporary
> (estimate is 2-3 years)
> refugee camps at Dujiangyan, near the quake epicenter, to
> help the
> children as the town is rebuilt. Each will offer HTS
> preschool, after
> school counseling and art classes and other therapeutic
> activities for
> school-age children, as well as counseling and training for
> caregivers,
> teachers, parents and foster parents. The first “Big
> Top” is scheduled to
> open in QinJian camp on Saturday.
>
....

> I stole away for a couple of days in order to write our
> proposal to the
> Ministry. In my absence, HTS communications director,
> Patricia King, wrote
> this report:
>
> A Machine to Save the World from Earthquakes
>
> “When I grow up I want to be a scientist so I can invent
> a machine that
> will predict earthquakes hours before they happen and I can
> take all the
> children to safety. And I will give the machine to
> everybody in the world
> for free.”
>
> “All I want is to go home.”
>
> “I want to be with my family.”
>
> “I want the earthquake to be gone so we can be happy
> again.”
>
> Who wouldn’t want to make these wishes of some of the
> youngest earthquake
> survivors come true? The wishes of children struggling to
> come to terms
> with a disaster that shattered everything they counted
> on—the rock solid
> earth they walked on, the mountains that were supposed to
> loom
> majestically above, not break apart, raining dangerous
> rocks, and most of
> all the comfort of their homes and their parents and
> teachers.
>
> The children now attend a “tent school” in the large
> refugee shelter in
> Dujiangyan designed to house 15,000 people displaced by the
> earthquake.
> They are taught by volunteers in prefabricated, vinyl
> walled, 9x12
> classrooms, each one packed with 40+ students.
>
> The walls are decorated with children’s artwork. It is
> art that depicts
> the kind of world the children would like to live in, the
> kind of world
> they now know can never be. In this town where the most
> prestigious middle
> school collapsed and killed so many bright, ambitious
> students, one child
> drew a mobile school complete with a lookout telescope and
> radar to pick
> up any sign of danger. The school is floating on what looks
> like a cloud
> or a flame that can move it out of danger should the earth
> below start to
> shake again.
>