Joshua Lange

Kampong Chhnang Province is the 15th largest in Cambodia with a population of 471,616 people. Located in the heartland of Cambodia, most parts of the province contain fertile soil reservoirs with abundant fish and rice paddies. Unfortunately, as with many places in Cambodia, Kampong Chhnang suffers from a shortage of clean drinking water.

During the month of December 2012, CWEF staff and local partners completed the installation of 8 waters wells with hand pumps supporting 40 families in Kampong Chhnang. Five wells were installed in Phnom Taos village and the additional three wells in Dom Nakklong village. These two villages are approximately 5 hours north of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Prior to the installation of the wells, the residents of Phnom Taos and Dom Nakklong were collecting water from a nearby pond, which was not suitable for cooking or drinking.  During the dry season, this pond would dry up.

CWEF staff met with the village chief and the water well contractor to determine where, when and how the 8 water wells might be completed. The contractor confirmed that it would take one week to finish all the wells and the cost for each well would be US$450. In addition to the installation of the wells, five individuals in charge of well maintenance received ‘safe water’ and ‘well maintenance’ training from CWEF staff. The wells were dedicated in a ceremony at the end of December allowing the families to come together, celebrate, enjoy fellowship, and envision a stronger and healthier future as a community.

Chen Ming is from Luzhou, Sichuan, China. He currently serves as the Shanghai Education Coordinator for CWEF.

“In the spring of 2008, as I was about to graduate from university in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, the famous May 12 earthquake happened and destroyed many parts of northern Sichuan. My classmates and I heard a lot of sad stories and saw many sad images from the earthquake area. We felt so bad and cried together during that time. Like many other college students, I wanted to do something to help. I told myself that if I got a chance to help the people in the earthquake area, there’s no doubt I would go.

Right after I graduated, this chance came to me. I got to know CWEF through Toni Wang, the manager of the Guangzhou office at that time. She introduced me to the work that was planned for the area around Nanba, a small town that was badly damaged by the earthquake. I was very excited; my first job could be to help other people. I visited Nanba and decided to spend two years there.

The first year of life in Nanba was very hard. There was no clean tap water, no buildings, no air conditioner. All this was kind of a shock to me as a city boy experiencing “real life,” but the people there treated us very well. We visited many homes and talked to the mothers who experienced the pain of losing their children, only to witness their joy in getting pregnant again and having new-born babies. We climbed mountains to build water cisterns to replace the ones that had been damaged in the earthquake. We helped the local school equip their new library building with books, computers and furniture. We organized different activities to enrich the local students’ school life.

In 2011, I moved to Shanghai to help set up new CWEF programs with migrant schools, which is what I am doing up until now. In my work with CWEF, I have to deal with different issues which can be very unexpected and challenging. I always have to learn new and different things to accomplish my work. If I was working in some other job in China, I probably would just need to repeat the same thing everyday.

In Nanba, all the work we did was very welcome by the locals, but they didn’t know why we did it. At the time, I didn’t know why CWEF had asked us to do those things either. I just knew CWEF existed to help people. Since I moved to Shanghai, I have experienced some deep changes in my beliefs. I still get to learn many things in my work, but now I realize it is much more meaningful than simply how I can improve myself. Now I know we were designed to serve others. I’m happy to work with CWEF because what we do matches what I believe in.”

-陈铭 Chen Ming

From September 22-26, Tangzishan village had some interesting guests: a group of 25 high school students and teachers from Concordia International School Shanghai. This service learning group had come to Tangzishan to work alongside the local residents to install a clean water system donated by their school and facilitated by CWEF. During their several days in the village, the team worked hard digging a deeper hole for the new cistern, digging trenches where pipe would be laid, and widening out the road leading to the cistern so that materials could be brought in.

The visiting students also had the privilege of spending some time to interview a number of the local families in their homes. One such woman was Mrs. Long Yifei. Here are a few of the questions she answered:

How is your family? Do you have any children?

How much schooling and education did your children receive?

How long does it take to get water without using the taps?

CWEF would like to thank the community at Concordia International School Shanghai for partnering with us to improve life in places like Tangzishan and for people like Mrs. Long!

From July 23-26, the annual REACH Teacher Training was held in Guangzhou, China. REACH (Resiliency Education: Advocacy, Collaboration & Hope) is a program that builds resiliency skills in at-risk high school students, many whom are recipients of CWEF scholarships. Resiliency is defined as the ability to maintain personal competency despite encountering adverse situations, misfortune, or stressful events.

The program revolves around a core of local teachers who volunteer their time to serve as REACH advocates, helping to build resiliency skills with the at-risk students at their schools through monthly activities using the REACH curriculum. This school year over 300 students from eight schools will participate in REACH with the help of over thirty local teachers in China’s Guangdong and Yunnan Provinces.

The four-day training session was focused on providing a theoretical baseline and many practical skills to approximately 15 new teacher advocates. A consultant from Hong Kong, experienced REACH teacher advocates, and CWEF staff led the training. The REACH curriculum uses participatory teaching methods to encourage students’ communication, leadership and teamwork skills. These methods are quite new to many classroom teachers in China, so the annual training session is crucial in forming a peer network among the advocates and for building their confidence in using these new teaching methods.

The goal of the REACH curriculum is to help students develop skills in five areas: self-awareness, social awareness, self- management, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Research has shown that competencies in these areas help students to be more successful in school and in life.

Many thanks to our individual donors and to LIMM (Lutherans in Medical Missions) for their grant of US$5,000 that made this training possible!

EMBER, with the support of CWEF conducted their annual summer camp from July 6-9, focusing on English and leadership skills for sixty of our female high school scholarship recipients in Deqing, Guangdong, China.

Volunteers from Hong Kong high schools and universities from around the world joined together to help the students improve their English and leadership skills through games, songs, acting and English activities.

A number of CWEF university scholarship students, who previously received high school scholarships, returned to help inspire and guide the high school students. Volunteers were able to visit the homes of several of the scholarship students, which provided them a window into the life of our students and created a greater awareness of the impacts of poverty in rural China. The students and volunteers also spent an afternoon visiting and singing with residents of a local elderly home. It was great to see the girls connect with other people whose need was just as great or greater than their own.

CWEF believes the awareness these experiences create is an important part of becoming a contributing member of society. We would like to thank the members of EMBER for their continuing commitment to the education and development of young women in China.

From May 24-27 a team of volunteers from California partnered with CWEF to complete the installation of a drinking water project in Yunnan, China.  During the project members of the team spent time working side by side with villagers, digging trenches for water pipes, digging a walkway around the new cistern and widening roads connecting villages.  The sense of community and camaraderie experienced by the team has left a lasting impression on all.

On Saturday April 28, Hong Kong International School (HKIS) Interact presented their annual charity fashion show entitled “Solstice 2012”. The 13th annual charity fashion show, presented by the students and faculty, was a professional display of the design and vocal talents of many HKIS students. The young men and women of HKIS modeled clothing from both well-known designers and HKIS student designers. HK$430,000 was raised for EMBER, on behalf of CWEF, in support of need-based scholarships for high school students in China.

Iantha Scheiwe, executive director of CWEF, along with Zella Talbot of the HKIS Humanities department, closed the evening by thanking the participants. Elain and Sally, two current CWEF high school scholarship students from Xiangshan Middle School in Deqing, Guangdong, China traveled to Hong Kong to share their stories with those in attendance.

The speeches of both students thanked CWEF for the support. Elain says:

Sally stated,

CWEF would like to thank both EMBER and HKIS for their generosity and commitment to the education of impoverished students in China. Through the gift of HK$430,000, 143 students in China and Cambodia will receive scholarships to high school and university.

During the weekend of January 14-15, 2012, six current teachers and two alumni of Concordia Leadership Academy (CLA) met together in Jiangmen, Guangdong, China to support each other and to advance the CLA program.  CLA is a leadership and life skills training program developed by CWEF and implemented by middle school & high school teachers at their schools.

The meeting participants came from Xiangshan High School (Guangdong), Heshan #1 High School (Guangdong), and ECNU #3 Middle School (Shanghai).  The Guangdong schools have been involved in the CLA program for several years, and their annual winter meeting is a time for teachers to come together, share successes, learn from one another, and build community.  The two Shanghai teachers, Xie Xinchun & Yan Yingchun, are launching CLA with migrant students at their school during Spring semester 2012.  Being new to the program, it was invaluable for them to be welcomed into this community of teachers in Guangdong who see the value of CLA for their students and wish to share their knowledge with other educators.

The group discussed the purpose of CLA and ideas for how to improve evaluation of the  program’s impact.  Teachers also formed teams to plan sample CLA lessons and together they demonstrated these lessons to the rest of the participants, followed by discussion and suggestions for improvement.

We were also very pleased to have two alumni of CLA come back to join the meeting.  Jenny Xu and Ocean He are former CLA participants at Xiangshan High School.  Both are currently attending university and plan to become teachers themselves.