Philanthropist helps improve rural society
Print Edition
FRANK Yih, a Chinese-American, established HuaQiao Foundation with a group of warmhearted overseas Chinese for the purpose of paying back to their motherland and society.
Yih and his fellow group members say their goal is to build a bridge of collaboration and communication between overseas and domestic Chinese.
The foundation’s philanthropic efforts focus mainly on education, public health and welfare initiatives in underdeveloped areas of China.
Yih and his team launched their Go West Program in 2007 to encourage college students to volunteer in poor areas of China and develop their sense of public devotion. Last year, the program funded the work of over 4,700 students with a total of 820,500 yuan (US$124,656).
Hundreds of thousands of local people, many of them children, benefited from the work of these dedicated young people.
Teams of student volunteers carried out their teaching and research work during their vacations. Lessons covered subjects like English, computer science, art and design.
Meanwhile, these student-teachers also researched subjects like rural living conditions, incomes, health care, ethnic minority culture, school libraries and left-behind children.
Tongren County in west China Qinghai Province is an area where many residents depend on agriculture for their livelihood. They are also extremely vulnerable to extreme weather.
The area’s local Tibetan people don’t pay enough attention to education. Only half of local school-age children are sent to school.
To improve this situation, volunteers sponsored by HuaQiao Foundation set up eight classes in four villages and trained local teachers and 200 students during a 2015 winter-vacation training program.
Around the same time, 20 volunteer teachers from Qinghai Normal University and Qinghai University for Nationalities were teaching at five schools in Guinan County of Qinghai’s Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. The program started in 2008 and has been carried out every summer and winter holiday since then.
Additionally, HuaQiao funds surgical operations for poor people in western China, where high malnutrition rates among poor children lead to higher rates of congenital heart disease and cleft lips and palate cases.
HuaQiao has also developed and initially implemented nutrition projects in east China’s Anhui Province.
Adhering to the tenet of supporting students, treating patients, helping the poor, HuaQiao Foundation has expanded its missions across China. It also shares ideas and engages in projects with other organizations.
At Yih’s headquarters in Changning District, six non-profit organizations share an office with HuaQiao Foundation.
Among them, Rotary Club of Shanghai, shares its mission to promote professional communication and provide humanitarian assistance.
It is a branch of Rotary International, and Yih himself is also an assistant governor to Rotary China.
HuaQiao Foundation cooperates with Rotary Club of Shanghai on the Gift of Sight, a campaign to establish comprehensive and training-based eye care systems to protect cataract patients from avoidable blindness. Since its launch in July 2011, it has helped provided nearly 1,000 eye operations, including 300 that were free.
Beside Rotary Club of Shanghai is Stepping Stones China, a volunteer organization that provides free English classes and eye care services to disadvantaged children and youth in Shanghai and rural China.
Meters away, the Sunrise Library aims to build free libraries at elementary schools in underdeveloped areas in China.
Next is Mingjian, which operates a consumer-protection website dedicated to independent testing and research.
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