Almost every household in Hanyuan is familiar with Rose Acocr, a British national who came to help the poor in Hanyuan County, Sichuan Province, which is located along the banks of the Dadu River, a tributary of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River.
After graduating from university in 1992, Rose came to China to do research. She was deeply impressed by the hard-working, warm-hearted people of Sichuan. While she was studying for her master?s degree at Leeds University, Rose took courses in Chinese rural development and in subject management. As soon as she finished her studies, she decided to put her rural development theory into practice in Sichuan.
In August 1996, 28-year-old Rose visited Sichuan?s Poverty-Aid Office, and showed her campaign plan to the officials there.
?I want to start with Hanyuan County,? she said, because she had learned that it was the most poverty-stricken area in the province.
The officials considered her offer seriously and agreed that Rose had made the right choice.
Hanyuan County is inhabited by the Han people and several ethnic groups, including the Tibetan and the Yi minorities. Over the centuries, this barren area has frequently been the victim of natural disasters; and financial and technical aid from the outside was badly needed. Due to the poverty, people in the area were living in extremely poor living conditions.
?Why don?t you choose another place?? for her sake, the officials tried to persuade Rose to change her mind.
?What?s the point of choosing somewhere that is better off?? rose replied to show her determination.
In January 1997, she raised funs to register the Development Organization of Rural Sichuan (DORS) as a charity in the UK. Her parents, her husband Richard Anderson, and two of her university classmates made up the first group of volunteers.
Rose started her poverty-aid campaign after investigating Hanyuan, and after many discussions with local officials and ordinary people. She raised money for future work by writing and faxing British commercial organizations and financial institutions in China, as well as Chinese and foreign charity organizations, friends, and the relevant international organizations. To raise more funds and introduce the county?s situation as well as the progress of the poverty-aid campaign, Rose established a website (http://www.dors.org.uk).
Since the implementation of the campaign, she has visited almost all of the remote and impoverished villages in the county, such as Yongli, the Shunhe Yi Village, Xixi, and Henan.
Sugu Village in Wusihe Township has 175 Yi households inhabiting the hillsides that occupy an area of 26 square kilometers. The village had poor living and production conditions before Rose?s arrival. During the daytime, she went door to door, paying people visits; and in the evening, she stayed overnight, chatting with the villagers, making friends, and learning about their needs. She returned to the county seat a week later.
After her visit, she raised 35,000 yuan, and allocated the funds to help 35 Yi households so that the women could buy livestock and transport as well as set up small businesses. She also helped the locals develop a number of businesses suited to local conditions.
?We mainly provide farmers with small loans, around 1,000 yuan. They repay the loans in two installments, paying off the loans within a year,? explained Rose. ?These funds help them increase their income through agriculture, side-line industries, or small family-oriented businesses.?
Today, many households have escaped the poverty cycle; and some are on their way to achieving prosperity.
Over the last few years, Rose and her partners have invested 2.8 million yuan in setting up 55 projects in eight severely impoverished villages and townships, such as Yongli, Shunhe, and Huangmu. However, nobody seems to know or remember how much effort and energy the organization has devoted to raising funds to develop each project.
Rose and her colleagues had to visit villages on foot, regardless of the strong sunshine or the wind and rain. It was common to walk ten miles to call on one family. She usually politely refused the hospitality of the local Yi people, who like to entertain visitors by killing their chickens or sheep.
Rose has created her Participate Rural Appraisal (PRA) to improve the results of the campaign. Formerly, farmers were passive, waiting for assistance. According to her PRA, farmers can give full play to their initiative with the financial and technical support of the organization. This method has helped farmers realize that the projects undertaken are for their own sake as well as for the sake of the village; and it encourages the farmers to solve their problems by themselves. For example, when a village faced a problem with their drinking water, Rose and at least 20 percent of the villagers tried to come up with a solution. They discussed what had already been done to solve the problem, what should be done, and whether or not the villagers would like to participate in the implementation of the program.
?We always learn from the villagers,? smiled Rose. ?We had no idea what their lives and difficulties were actually like, but now we have seen it for ourselves. We clearly understand that we are their guests rather than their superiors who point out what they have done wrong.?
So far, her experiences have been disseminated to help other poverty-aid campaigns in Sichuan.
Among the volunteers in the organization, five are women: Rose from the UK, Elsa Fan from the United States, Caroline Legros from Canada, Rita Bonomally from Mauritius, and Yumei Guo from China.
(China Pictorial January 24, 2003)
