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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.

In the last six months, 20 village volunteers shared what they have learned through giving training to 1,205 Chinese villagers in basic health concepts following the methods of the Community Health Education (CHE) program.

Starting six months ago, CWEF staff trained 20 villagers in CHE concepts. Since their first training, those trainers have led an additional 33 training sessions.

Long is 35 years old. He is a  villager in one of the villages where CWEF trained local CHE teachers. He has four people in his family, including his wife, son (3 years old) and daughter (9 years old). His daughter studies in primary school. She goes to school on Sundays and returns to the village on  Fridays after her classes complete. The government  school in his village area is too far away for her to  travel there and back each day for class, so she boards at the  school during the week. Last year their family income  for the year was 8000RMB (US$1250, or 85¢/day each). Their family has been fortunate that they have not had serious illnesses.  Long’s family participated in the CHE trainings given during the fall. Since the training, his family members now all brush their teeth every day. CWEF will continue to encourage the local trainers in all of the health topics as well as monitor the village situations to look for longer term changed habits and improved health and sanitation conditions.

In a country that floods annually during the rainy season, Cambodia’s amount of water available is not always a problem. The problem for many rural communities is the cleanliness of their water. CWEF supports rural communities through a partnership with Resource Development International to meet a need for clean water.

RDI is a Christian organization that has developed a water filter unit for families. The device consists of a plastic container, a clay pot, one plastic O-ring, a spigot, a scrub brush for cleaning, and a plastic lid. All components are specially designed for the purpose of cleanliness and efficiency.

A filter unit lasts 2 to 4 years before it needs replacement.  It filters out harmful bacteria, viruses, and chemical components. RDI manufactures, supplies and teaches about the use of their filters, but they aren’t able to reach every town and village.

Last month CWEF distributed 40 filters to Bos Pul in northern Cambodia and this month 40 filters will be given to more families in the same area. Volunteers participating in service learning events are trained to distribute and educate families about the filters. The volunteers teach in groups of two, with the help of translators, to small groups of villagers consisting of 7 to 10 people.

For many, clean water is the difference between sickness and health, working or staying home, sanitation or filth. CWEF plans to continue distributing filters and educating about clean water use, striving to serve the great need in Cambodia.

Many of you have served with CWEF through one of our short-term service learning trips. A majority of CWEF’s volunteers share their talents with us through those special programs on location in one of our partner communities. CWEF also has special needs as an organization related to our communication and    administration functions. We are blessed that volunteers also share their unique gifts with us in those areas. Some times these volunteers are already familiar with us through participation in our short-term events. But, volunteers also learn about CWEF and our mission through the internet. Last summer we were blessed to have four volunteers serve with us for one month. All four were students finishing their MBA program through the highly regarded Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School. This MBA program integrates a “Giving Back” program as part of its corporate social  responsibility coursework. All  students in the program seek out a non-profit agency through which they can complete a project relevant to their interests. These four students spent a month in our Kunming office. They reviewed our current processes and made recommendations for improving CWEF project information tracking. In addition, they reviewed available information management systems and made recommendations to us for systems that would meet our needs as well as be accessible  across our various offices. The tracking improvements were instituted already in the fall and the  information management improvements are being implemented throughout this year. Keep an eye out this month for our new website that is a part of these improvements. Thank you to Milena Loayza, Julian Sanchez, Miguel Ortega and Carlos Forey for their contribution to CWEF’s mission to improve lives through education and service.