Yuan's adventures since returning from APLP adventure

Aloha,

My dearest G12 friends. This month is my turn to tell you my adventures since we parted in Hawaii! Thanks Ahila for such an excellent idea that we can still exchange our stories and keep connected with each other.

It is sunshine outside when I am typing these sentences, which means in Beijing today we have a nice weather, no fog and haze, good news:)

After returning from GIST in June 2013, I came back to my responsibility at Oxfam based in mainland China. The stories below are from that time till January 2015. I picked up some exciting highlights in my life to share with you guys.

l    Still working for, helping and supporting poor people and vulnerable groups.

One of my working products is my team’s collaboration with researchers on a study series of a situation analysis on rural women, children, elderly people and people with disabilities in China and providing policy recommendations to the central government on pro-poor and inequality reducing. We also launched three sub-reports in bilingual version on International Women’s Day, International Children’s Day, and the Double Ninth Festival respective to raise awareness on these vulnerable groups. The report on rural disable peopled is in progress and will be launched in May, 2015, which is the National Help-The-Disabled Day.

            Picture 1 - 3: The covers of reports

l  Photos by GISTers have been selected into Oxfam’s case study report
In April 2013, Taku, Michelle, Duan, Nancy and I visited a small mountain village located nearby Lijiang city, Yunnan province. We had a memorable experience there in terms of nature scenery and ethnic minority people's culture. (I feel sorry for Michelle and Taku's physical discomfort, but we were still quite happy). Oxfam Hong Kong has worked in that village for more than 10 years. Based on these programme outcomes, we launched a case study report to reflect approaches for this type of mountain village which is facing double-faced challenges including natural ecology protection and need for poverty alleviation. The report has been selected into China's Poverty Alleviation Case Report Database which is set up by the Department of Poverty Reduction supported by World Bank.

In this report, I selected specially a photo of Taku in the Yi people’s village, taken by Nancy, to represent a tourist enjoying the scenery of the villageJ. Some flower photos taken by Taku were also included into the report (pl. refer to the picture below). We are working on revising this case study report for better understanding by international communities, hopefully the English version could be shared with you in the year of 2015.

The cover of the case study report. the Back cover is collection of media reports on this village.

                                               Look, Taku is at the top left cornerJ    

                

                                          Some flower photos taken by Taku

l  Friend network moving forward

In September 2013, Ahila and I experienced a wonderful mountain trip in the north-west part of Yunnan province, China. We visited the Mosuo people’s village at Lugu lake, in which most people are part of a matriarchy society and still live their traditional life style.

 

Ahila with two Mosuo ethnic ladies          Ahila, was on the way to Lugu lake, in mountain area

Our Aloha Hui group whose members are Nancy, Aiying, Ahila and me continue our skype chatting every three months for status updating. It is quite nice to hear the girls’ voices respectively from Australia, New York and LondonJ. The friendship is going forward from the time it was formed in Hawaii. Oh, one more thing is that we are planning to go to Colombo for half-Marathon plus a sightseeing trip around Sri Lanka at the beginning of October, highly welcome more APLP friends join us! 

To be continued next week....

[Note: As Yuan does not have direct access to the blog, I am posting her emailed posts here on  her behalf. However, she will receive your blog comments and queries via her email. So, please do share your feedback via the comment box below - Ahila]