EARTHQUAKE
Last May one of the most devastating earthquakes in human history
devastated southern China. The 8.0 magnitude quake in the province of
Sichuan killed nearly 70,000 people, according to official figures, and even shook buildings more than a thousand miles away. With the full horrors of the disaster dominating our televisions screens and newspapers, thousands of us donated money to aid the relief effort. But for one brave Windsor Fellow this wasn't enough. Leon Chen had to go out there to do more.
How did you get involved in the relief efforts?
Leon: It made sense. In some ways I think I would have gone anyway because it's China, but the fact that it happened to be in Szechuan, my home province really gave me a sense of duty to return.
Was your family home near the epicentre of the quake?
Leon: It was within 50 kilometres away. It was just lucky because the band that was affected literally missed by 40 or 50 kilometres, which is nothing at all. Because an earthquake zone can be hundreds and hundreds of kilometres it was just very lucky and if it had been Chengdu, we wouldn't be talking about 100-thousand deaths, we'd be talking about maybe more than a million.
So how did you get involved with the relief efforts?
Leon: I tried to enrol in a normal way first. And of course, the normal way is you just go to the city hall and register to do it but now there's so many, it's not like the earthquake which was in '49 when no one was willing to help and there was no help available but now there are literally thousands and thousands of students queuing up to help so only a small percentage were permitted to go. They didn't let everyone in and just because there are so few organizations to actually associate with the relief, I then knew it was impossible to get in that way. Through a contact who had another contact who had another contact, I spent quite a long time chasing contacts to make this work out and in the end I got onto an NGO, Disaster Preparedness Centre and they fast tracked me into going there. Normally, they're quite serious in choosing good people and you had to volunteer weeks ahead and for at least two months. I didn't have that, but did speak the local dialect, so they wanted me straight away and it all worked very well. Everything stems from that, suddenly I was set to go.
How long were you volunteering for?
Leon: I was Sichuan for about a month and a half and I did some work in Chengdu first before going. Reflecting back it was a substantial effort compared to normal 'city jobs'.
Tell me a little bit about the project you worked on? What kind of relief work were you doing with Disaster Preparedness?
Leon: The first project was to set up a library. It was partially set up in terms of tents but so we had to actually furnish it, making it habitable. We managed to get a library started, and get in some funding for books, that's what it's all about. There was a large youth section for Chinese children, they missed out on regular schooling following the earthquake, and we were able to help, assembling about 10-thousand books. All the children in the camp could join the club and subsequently they could borrow books, up to four at a time.
What were the big impacts of the work that you did and how did things develop?
Leon: We did all sorts of things, like carry water for the elderly who were receiving treatment at the Red Cross hospital' they found it very hard to get to the water tap every day. There weren't that many taps. We went on a daily basis, every day to fill up all their buckets about a 200 meters walk uphill, which required several trips. There were other simple things, very mundane things. We went and delivered electric fans because it was very hot there' we distributed them amongst the elderly and neediest. To get this sort of information were moving around a lot travelling by bike around to
different regions talking to the people, getting intelligence and learning about developing issues as well as working on the day to day basics tasks.
On each trip I would take notes and report back on our findings in the evening meetings. It was very hard to know what was going on, you had to talk to people in different areas to build up a picture of the story unfolding, there wasn't very good communication otherwise.
How else did you help the people afflicted by the quake?
Leon: Every night at 6:30 we showed a film as we had a projector there and every night we'd have a turnout of about 250 people. It gave people something to do and socialize and unless it was raining. So that was quite informal. We had these films but we wanted to do something in that same sort of way, on a regular basis with stimulating networks, communication and enterprise. Hence we adopted the idea of having community networking and small business dialogue sessions in the day time.
The first networking session achieved brilliant success so, the idea was to get 100 people. We actually divided them up into groups, half of them as residents, and half those who had contacts with some government officials and investors.
Tell me more about these networking sessions
Leon: We'd assign tables and distribute the people according to villages with one government official and business representative with them and then they'd discuss employment and business creation ideas. In some cases it would be the entrepreneurs and their investors meeting up. One of the main affects of this was exchanging
contact information. Everyone had mobile phones but weren't using
them to effect as business tools. They exchanged phone numbers and then they would have a new network from which some services or goods could be created.
What still needed to be done when you left?
Leon: The main thing is the government has provided
temporary housing on a very large scale. One cluster would accommodate 30 thousand villagers. But they weren't of the quality we had hoped with one set of toilets per every 100 people. There were quite a lot of people having problems with food poisoning due to lack of sanitation and hygiene, and the lack of planning didn't help. The villagers had to fight the winter to survive in a kind of plastic tent, a temporary shelter. The amount of space was equivalent to four meters wide by four meters wide. Three people had to live inside one of those all year. They had TVs, which is quite funny, but getting access to a shower was extremely difficult. The nearest one to us was over two kilometres away!
What legacy do you hope you left there?
Leon: I hope we made change happen from within, and not just reliant on us. Chinese people are very good at relying on the government and in the past whenever something's happened, they rely on their government's help. I feel that the villagers where I worked have a lot of pride, a lot of self-resolve. There, of course, needs to be further action, but I feel proud to have been part of a team that made a big impact with these small projects and initiatives. Because I had a different background and perspective, I was able to bring in different ideas from my experiences in the west and contribute to our strategy. I simply introduced old ideas to a different context and adapted them slightly (such as the networking concept from the 'milkround' students experience back in the UK) in order to create change. This change hopefully facilitated the citizens to help themselves rather than rely on handouts.
How did the experience affect you and your perceptions of the country?
Leon: It was a real pleasure to discover how resourceful Chinese people were in the worst of situations. In fact, it really gave me an insight into how this nation has managed to dig itself out disaster and then three months later produce one of the most spectacular Olympic Games ever. The next challenge of overcoming the economic downturn will not be easy but if any nation has an answer in this day, I feel China will.
However I cannot help but remember that China's immense growth has
been at a great environmental cost. And if anything, I have learnt a firm lesson about the power of nature from my experience. If it's a case of the 'survival of the fittest', humans will always lose.
In my view the ominous issue of climate change should come next on the Chinese people's agenda. I feel that entrepreneurship and sustainability should go hand in hand towards searching for practical solutions to such a global problem. I look forward to returning to China and being involved in further work in this field after graduation. For the moment we have launched a small project from Oxford called Sustainable Chinese Enterprise which aims to develop the next generation of 'sustainable entrepreneurs' in China. For more on this please visit www.suchenglobal.org
Leon Chen studies at Oxford University and is on the Windsor Fellowship's Leadership Programme
