September 30th marked the official closing of the CWEF Sichuan field offices located both in Chengdu and Nanba which opened in 2008 in response to the May 12, 2008 earthquake. The disastrous 8.0 earthquake took the lives of over 68,000 people, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless.
The then manager of the CWEF Guangdong office, Toni Wang, who is originally from Chengdu was instrumental in helping CWEF make connections with the government and school officials in the small countryside town of Nanba. CWEF was also able to partner with the Anthropology department at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou for the purpose of facilitating a counseling program and research efforts specific to the effects of earthquake victims in the small town of Nanba.
During the past three years CWEF, along with the Pingwu county government and school officials, were able to accomplish many projects in an effort to help the schools and communities recover from the earthquake. These projects included building three water systems in three separate areas, providing many school resource materials for over 15 different schools, including two complete libraries with book shelves and over 250,000 books, a computer lab, closed circuit TV for educational purposes, and basic materials for teaching biology, chemistry and geography.
During this time there were also four different service teams that came and held English camps for both students and teachers and two service teams that came and provided eyeglass clinics that covered over 15 different villages and schools. In order to accomplish all of these projects, CWEF was privileged to have on staff Charlotte Chen and Bryan Chen (unrelated) who served faithful for nearly three years. CWEF Sichuan would also like to thank the many generous donors who made these projects possible.