Big Love in Small Parcels

By Tang Yuankai

Zhao Weiwei, a student of fashion design at the prestigious China Central Academy of Fine Arts, is one of the most acclaimed young designers in China. At the Kopenhagen Fur Accessories Design Competition, which culminated in an award ceremony in Beijing on October 26, Zhaos design—a fur hat that could also be worn as a light shawl—won the top honor. However, compared with the title, what made Zhao even more excited was that most of the items from the design competition were sold and all the proceeds were donated to the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) to purchase school supplies for children who lack the means.

This Love Parcel charity program was launched nationwide in 2009 to help children in poor or disaster-prone areas. Across China, people participated in the program by purchasing generic love parcels containing stationery and teaching aids and mailing them to children in need. Parcels with stationery for fine arts classes cost 100 yuan ($16.05) each and parcels with teaching aids for physics or music classes cost 1,000 yuan ($161) each. People could also donate money to children in need through the programs website.

The parcels for fine arts classes total 185 items, including colored pencils, a pencil case, notebooks, erasers and a school bag. The music class parcel has 21 items including a keyboard, a speaker, a DVD player and a drum, while the physical education class parcel has 60 items, including badminton sets, table tennis sets, basketballs, footballs, relay batons and a stopwatch.

Before entering China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2008, Zhao lived in his hometown of Yucheng County in central Henan Province, one of the least developed counties in China. Although Zhao is from a relatively well-off family, it pained him to see some of his classmates unable to afford basic school supplies and textbooks.

“Inside these parcels are notebooks, pencils and erasers, which most of us take for granted. However, these are luxuries or even dreams come true to children in many poor areas,” Zhao said.

Since Zhao is the champion of the contest, what pleased him was that his gold medal-winning work sold at a high price shortly after the charity bazaar started, which could be used to purchase many supplies packages.

Nearly 40 award-winning works created by students of the Academy of Art & Design at Tsinghua University and ESMOD Beijing also sold out at the charity auction. According to organizers of the design competition and charity bazaar, Kopenhagen Fur and China International Clothing & Accessory Fair, proceeds have paid for several hundred supplies packages.

“We are happy to see that many young designers are eager to participate in the charity auction in this contest. Their passion for charity is very well suited for Kopenhagen Furs corporate social responsibility. We sincerely hope these young designers will carry on this idea in the coming journey in their lives,” said Kenneth Loberg, Sales and Marketing Director of Kopenhagen Fur.

With the theme of Wonder-Fur Life, Kopenhagen Fur Accessories Design Competition aims to promote a whole new way of life known as LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability), a trendy lifestyle prevailing among Chinas youth.

An anonymous worker of the CFPA said that the contest highlights both creativity and charity, as promising young designers, who are the future elites of the fashion industry, will become supporters of charity causes and attract more participants with their influence.

Extensive help

“So far, the Love Parcel program has had more than 1 million donors, 80 percent of whom are ordinary people,” said Yan Zhitao, Deputy Director of the CFPAs Donations Department.

According to the CFPAs surveys on donors, 90 percent of the respondents said that their donations were made without any influ- ence from governmental advocates.

The original inspiration for the Love Parcel program is a temporary post-earthquake relief program. After an 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan County, Sichuan, on May 12, 2008, the CFPA partnered with post offices near its headquarters in Beijing to sell charity New Year cards to the public at the end of 2008. These greeting cards were sold at 10 yuan ($1.61) apiece and 5.5 yuan ($0.88) were donated to a scholarship program for primary school students in areas affected by the earthquake. Each card is printed with the name and address of a recipient student in an earthquake-affected area. The CFPA eventually sold 110,000 cards.

The campaign successfully built a foundation for future cooperation between the CFPA and China Post Group (CPG). The Love Parcel program was the brainchild of sales promoters from both sides.

The CFPA launched the Love Parcel program at 360,000 post offices around China on April 26, 2009. In the first two months since its inception, the program attracted 800,000 individ- ual donors and 43,000 corporate donors, who contributed a total of 130 million yuan ($20.9 million) and bought parcels for 1.2 million students in areas affected by the Wenchuan earthquake. The program was expanded to primary school students in all poverty-stricken areas in the country in 2010. By the end of 2011, the total donations had amounted to 234.2 million yuan ($37.6 million), which were spent on school supplies for 2.02 million students in 6,223 schools in 298 counties.

During the implementation of this program, the CFPA is in charge of producing parcels, from designing to purchasing stationery and teaching aids, as well as drafting a list of students in need and their addresses by collecting information from local governments poverty alleviation offices and education bureaus. The CFPA workers are also involved in promoting this charity cause, conducting satisfaction surveys among recipients and mailing donation receipts to donors. Meanwhile, the CPG has developed software for the programs platform and installed it in computers of most post offices throughout the country so that parcels can be timely and accurately delivered to students in need.

“The CPG agreed on this cooperative program because of its expected role in boosting the companys public recognition, but later found that its participation itself is fulfilling corporate responsibilities as gifts from strangers could really warm up the hearts of needy students,” Yan said.

During the preparation of this program, the CFPA conducted surveys and telephone interviews with headmasters of schools in poor and disaster-prone areas. The research helped the CFPA learn what these schools and their students wanted. What surprised CFPA workers was that whereas almost every school in cities offers piano and fine arts classes, many children in poor areas could not even afford a colored pen or a toy ball. Therefore, they designed parcels for fine arts and physical education classes.

Out of the 100 yuan that donors pay for the stationery parcels, only 8 yuan ($1.28) is used as the CFPAs administrative expenses, which covers all the procedures of fundraising, workers salaries and other expenses. And 19.6 yuan($3.15) is taken away by the CPG to deliver parcels, receipts and students thank-you cards. The remaining 72.4 yuan ($11.63) covers the costs of the stationery.

The CFPAs next development goal for the Love Parcel program is to make it a household name within three to five years. To this end, the CFPA has used its reputation to find free advertising slots on the Movie Channel of national broadcaster CCTV and at subway stations.

“One additional primary school student in poor areas is covered by our program every half minute after its launch,” said Chen Hongtao, Deputy Secretary General of the CFPA.

Meanwhile, the CFPA has been providing training programs for fine arts and physical education teachers in rural schools, which are focused on how to use teaching aid and games to inspire students interest in learning.

“Compared with receiving only material assistance, children would be better off if they could receive an education that allows them to pursue a better life,” said Luo Zhigang, a famous news commentator. He believes that training high-quality teachers and nurturing a social atmosphere where educators are respected are vital for developing education in poor areas.

Zhao said that supporting education in poor areas plays a significant role in poverty reduction. “These children should grow healthily and at least learn some skills so that they can create wealth for society and support themselves,” he said.

Transparency

Zhang Xiaowen is a fourth-grade student in Baishu Village, Weixian County in northern Hebei Province. “Dear donor, thank you for the parental love you have given me. I dont do well in school, but when I grow up, I will try to love others and let them feel the warmth I feel now,” he wrote on the thank-you card attached to the “l(fā)ove parcel” he received.

One feature of the Love Parcel program is that it allows donors to select parcel recipients from a list of qualified students and allows recipients to express their gratitude directly in the form of thank-you cards.

The program has also publicized all the information about the products they purchased through public bidding. Therefore, the public can compare the prices to those in supermarkets.

The CFPA experienced delivering charity under harsh conditions. In May 2010, Cao Dewang, founder and Board Chairman of Fuyao Glass Industry Group based in Fuzhou, southeastern Fujian Province, the worlds second largest auto glass maker, donated 200 million yuan ($30.4 million) to nearly 100,000 impoverished rural families in five provinces in west China. Severe droughts hit vast areas in these provinces in that year.

Cao gave the money—the largest single private donation in Chinas history—to the CFPA. But the strict conditions that came with the donation are making its distribution a daunting task.

To ensure the donation would be successfully granted, Cao signed an agreement with the CFPA based on three conditions: The CFPA had to distribute the funds within six months; rate of error in distribution had to be less than 1 percent; and the administrative fee the CFPA received would be limited to 3 percent of the total donation amount.

The Regulations on Foundation Administration states the highest administrative fee for such donations can be 10 percent of the donated amount. But Cao gave only 6 million yuan ($964,000) to the CFPA as the administrative expenses of the funds. “Keeping the rate of error under 1 percent is not difficult when there are 100 recipients. However, it became much more difficult when the donations needed to be distributed to nearly 100,000 households. It required a large amount of manpower and many channels to deliver money accurately to those in need,” Chen said.

He Daofeng, Vice President of the CFPA, said that the handling of Caos donation has set a good example for charity foundations in China to build accountability systems and promote transparency in charity contributions.

The distribution drive turned out to be a success according to a third-party appraisal, which was also lauded by Cao. In Caos office, there are dozens of boxes of materials on his donation program, including information on 92,150 poor households in 5,820 villages of 17 counties.

“I have donated to charitable causes for so many years and this is the first time Ive received such detailed original information on beneficiaries,” Cao said.

Greater involvement

Fan Xiaojian, head of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, spoke highly of the program. He said that children will be an important target of Chinas poverty alleviation work in the future at an international seminar on November 20.

Besides the CFPAs Love Parcel program, children in poor and disaster-prone areas are receiving aid from a growing number of corporations and individuals.

Ermu Epo is a 31-year-old civil servant in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, southwestern Sichuan Province, one of the most poverty-stricken areas in the country. He was the first person to organize large-scale school supplies and clothes donations to students in poor areas.

Growing up in a poor farmers family and working as a primary school teacher for four years before joining the civil service, Ermu was saddened to witness the harsh living conditions of local children. In 2005, he posted a blog asking “Who Can Give Me Some Winter Clothes?” and attached photos of children with ragged clothes and bare feet on a snowy day.

His message immediately attracted mailed donations of stationery and clothes. In the following years, Ermu dedicated his blogs to raising donations for local children. In response to netizens who answered his calls, he often posted pictures of childrens happy smiles when holding the gifts he delivered.

Over six years, Ermus charity campaign drew more than 300,000 in donated clothes, stationery and quilts, and he sent the packages by horse to poor people in more than 100 remote mountain villages. People who knew of Ermus campaign also offer scholarships of 800 yuan ($129) to 5,000 yuan ($803) a year to more than 100 students.