Waking up at 7am to meet at the Bookworm at 8am for a trip to XiaoYudong is not something everyone would do on a Sunday but no one is more passionate about this than a volunteer.
The volunteer group was made up of local university students, expat volunteers and members of Humana People to People. Among them was Mark Soper, he organized the trip to XiaoYudong, a small village tucked away under spectacular snow-topped mountains. We were greeted by enthusiastic children who were delighted to sing and play with us.
Q: Can you tell me a bit more about Chengdu Sports Aid (CSA)?
A: CSA was created in summer 2008 by a group of local sports enthusiasts, led by Jonathan Dallas. He was talking with other sport clubs to teach the earthquake children how to play sports and other events. That way the children could take their mind off of what happened during the earth quake. This year, I took over from Jonny.
Q: What is the relation between Sports Aid and Sichuan Quake Relief?
A: CSA is operated and run by members of the Sichuan Quake Relief team. We started this group with the concept of going to earthquake-displaced areas of Sichuan and provide organized sports training/coaching and equipment to underprivileged kids. As an NGO you need to find support from the government and that’s why we work with Sichuan Quake Relief because they help us with contacting the right people and schools.
Q: Is it difficult to get to the schools?
A: Sometimes it can be a problem because the school isn’t available or if the road is blocked or if we can’t use the sports ground, then we have to change our plans. That’s Sichuan Quake Relief’s task to organize that. We gather volunteers like the people from universities (Sichuan Normal University for example). If it’s a new school we’re going to, then we have to buy balls, some things to play with and so on. At the moment I think we have 7 different schools that we’ve already given sports equipment to. So we have 7 different places we can go to, where we already organized these kind of events.
Q: What’s on the schedule for today?
A: The schools are around 3 hours from Chengdu and we stay for 3-4 hours each week. The first hour is used for warm-ups and drills and the rest is used for competitive playing. What capacity we can organize each sport is contingent upon the space available at the school. Some schools have better facilities than others. Most of them are very basic with a large open dirt or concrete area. The kids are all displaced from the earthquake; some have lost their parents, all have lost friends and loved ones. This offers them a bit of fun and release for a few hours each week.
Q: How do you finance your events?
A: We organize charity events with the sports community, they give us enough money to pay for sports equipment and a few other expenses. The money that we raised is managed by Sichuan Quake Relief. That way we know how many trips we can make that year, where we can go and what else we can do. Eton House provides us with their bus but we have to pay for the driver and the fuel. None of the volunteers are paid. The only people who are getting paid are the bus driver and the Sichuan Quake Relief people.
Q: How many volunteers do you have now?
A: In the beginning of 2009 we started with 30 volunteers who went to the first 3 schools every week for about 3 months. Now we have a pool of more than 60 volunteers, both Chinese and foreign, and that number keeps growing!
To find out more about a typical Chengdu Sports Aid trip, read about the trip to Qipangou and the one to Luo Shui with Clowns Sans Frontieres.
What can you do to help?
- Donate money to fund Chengdu Sports Aid.
- Donate new sports equipment to Chengdu Sports Aid: email csa@sichuan-quake-relief.org.
- Volunteer to coach/organize sports and games every Sunday: email csa@sichuan-quake-relief.org.
- For more information, see the CSA-Volunteers Google Group. There is also a CSA Facebook page, but at present access to Facebook from within China is blocked so updates might be few and far between.
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