Visiting An HIV Village

 Visiting An HIV Village

SIAS University

Henan Province, China

Spring 2012 

In the winter of 2012, I taught leadership skills to college women in China.  As part of the program, they had to participate in a community service project. This volunteerism is a new concept for the Chinese And the feedback that I have received from my students indicate that many of these moments were life changing. I just found this report from one of my students about a project she completed.  I wish I remembered who sent this to me.  

           

 Volunteer visiting for HIV village and possibilities 

About the visits to the AIDS village volunteers on April 21 and 22, it touched me a lot, so I want to share six stories with you about them. 

1,Story about Chi Heng Foundation:

The story took place 15 years ago on a train, a man and his son were sitting opposite Mr. Du Cong, they were silent and thin. After that, he knew they had been diagnosed with AIDS. While the father and son did not know what AIDS was, they knew  the body was getting weak, and the village was n stranger to death. Mr. Du was shocked by this phenomenon, and decided to follow them to the village to see the real situation. He was shocked to see the original villagers here  selling blood to maintain life. At that time, there was no means to check out the bacteria in the blood. In this way, the village has become a famous "AIDS village". The village  also had a popular saying: (stretched it out a curled can earn fifty-I don’t understand what this means). Because of poverty, the villagers sold their blood, selling blood infected AIDS, result in more AIDS victims instead of curing people. Mr. Du was deeply shocked by the situation in the village, determined to do something for these people, and then he returned to Hong Kong to establish  the Chi Heng Foundation. This foundation has developed very well but they need more people to participate together to fight AIDS, to help victims.

1.     Story about the grandmother.

We visited the first place of a grandmother at home, these two pictures illustrate the condition of her home, but worse, the 72-year-old grandmother has to care for her grandson who was diagnosed with AIDS. He is an 18-year-old boy, short and thin, and weak like a 13-year-old child. His parents both passed away due to AIDS. After that he studied in a school run by the Chi Heng Foundation. He had  migrant work when he graduated, but was son dismissed because of AIDS. At home, the only form of entertainment is to see the television with two channels. Besides this, there is  the problem of who will take care of him after his grandma passes away,  and withstanding the pain of torture, tears and anxiety of his grandmother. Add to that the most difficult problem  to rectify this fragile house! We are deeply troubled by this problem, what they can do when it is raining, or ice cold in winter...... Chace decided to give them donations to build the activities of the board. The Office of the Chi Heng Foundation is going to build a warm house for  them. Of course, this is only one example of the thousands of cases, the situation there is even more urgent and poor. Many hands make light work, so we sincerely hope that there are more people to help them.

3,Social Entrepreneur 

This is the story of a student affected by AIDS who, lucky and  grateful, went back to his village with the knowledge    to help other villagers. He is smart enough to do his own projects with start-up funds donated by the Chi Heng Foundation. He got the the villagers to plant peppers, for example. Due to the impact of the disease on these villagers, their bodies are weak, so planting peppers is a good choice. When the peppers are ripe, they use the network marketing to attract the buyers. Currently, the peppers have all been sold this year. He and LaoGanma Company had a further negotiation towards next year's orders. Taking into account that farmers have only four months being busy for planting, and the remaining eight months of nothing to do, it is a pretty scary fact. A classic idea was suddenly born ----- handmade headdress flower. At first, there was one volunteer to teach, and more than 100 villagers who came to learn. He personally went to Guangzhou, Suzhou, to study the market, to sell products, to fight for orders, but because of distance issues, has yet to get the first order. He also took into account his own shop in Zhengzhou with theme marketing, online orders, and so on. As we went to visit, we also wanted to order some goods, to find markets in SIAS as the Woman Academy’s charity project wants to support one of the products. We are looking for help to them and the possibility of cooperation.

4.  Chi Heng Foundation donated the library for the school

 One education-oriented project involved children as the Foundation for the development of building a reading room, buying  books, providing musical instruments and music programs, and other activities. This library is open to all students (including those not affected by AIDS-affected children)  in order to reduce the distance between the children. We hope to work with them: keeping English-language  magazines in the library; donating some Junior English books; and bring to them the idea of a reading project which would bring parents together with children at the school, promote a connections between the two generations, and so on. Hopefully Sias can also establish a WAFW library, our reading seed projects, which has been strongly supported by the school and the Academic Affairs Office, successfully held in the Hall on the third floor, Executive floor, every Saturday. But we want development, while lack of space has been our biggest problem. We hope for children to develop for the future, and look forward to  the new library building with a beautiful House For WAFW Library, designed for children, and opening the doors of wisdom.

5. Environment-friendly bags factory

Another strong woman we met is affected by the disease without succumbing to it. Her husband is living with AIDs, they have three school students at home, but life's struggles doesn’t pull down this wise woman. The Chi Heng help her set up their own small family factory, specializing eco-bags, for businesses in the community, for the Chi Heng Foundation, with the origin of the Academy. Each bag has its own story, each bag has its own unique aspects.  ,Women married to AIDS victims need lots of orders to come,as they have much down time. They need  business and orders. We bought some samples from the factory to show  to businesses and enterprises who can help them. For example, we sent Sias’ LOGO to them , so they could make Sias’ people their own environmental bag and sell them in the Sias gift shop. We gave them WAFW’s LOGO, so they could make WAFW environmental bags to sell in WAFW’s location.; Also, our school will issue a large environmentally friendly bag every Winter Holiday for the students who need to move into their dorms.  Also, making WAFW’s marketing project as a contact, we can get students to make DIY  favorite bags or backpack. To take advantage of Internet marketing, one could put this online. (What kind of mother,  what kind of daughter, a little 13 year old girl have a particular design talent, Mommy bags with the rest of the cloth, she collected into various small skirts, particularly delicate (Chace, and Andrea was in his hand). Her dosen’t constraint from family, the courage to chase your dreams, let us highly inspired and encouraged.I don’t understand this part) Dreams are not afraid of pain, pursuing your dreams always leaves you brimming with a bright smile on a face full of hope. Cheers  for the designers of the future.

6 .Summer camp 

During the conversations I overheard Chi Heng Foundation took the kids to Sias before, and spent a memorable summer camp for one-week. They swam together, played golf together, and Shawn Chen asked them for a hearty meal, they are still thankful now. They hope this year ‘s International Children ' s Day or the summer vacation, they can hold another summer camp in Sias and let children feel the depth of Sias life, let them full fill with hope and a vision for their future. In summer camps,WAFW also can hold a summer camp, as a college student,we can set a good example to them, telling them how beautiful college life is. As we also do Hanzhuang project,so we can invite children in Hanzhuang to participate in the summer camp. Getting children with different backgrounds play together, having a good time, increasing vulnerability to child's communication skills, increasing confidence, reducing injuries, allowing the little children have a new understanding and awareness about AIDS. Also allow them to give each other a card to mark the occasion.