NGO’s based in Sichuan have banded together to informally establish a “Sichuan NGO Disaster Relief Coalition Office,” and since our R&S Chengdu Office seems to be in a safe and functioning building, they are operating out of our office. The office has confirmed 5 volunteers who are working on collection and storage of needed items and three vehicle teams who are moving donated items to the locations in need that are accessible by road, namely Pengzhou and Dujiangyan. So far, they have worked with a Guangzhou-based volunteer group to purchase 150,000 RMB worth of needed goods, food and water; and 230,000 RMB worth of medicines was donated by a local pharmaceutical company. The medicines were distributed to disaster areas in cooperation with the Red Cross. They are working through local media contacts and friends at the Red Cross to collect the latest information about disaster areas. That office is now set-up to take donated items that are delivered to our office, and efficiently deliver them to the areas in need. The Chengdu-based operation cannot accept monetary donations at this time; we encourage people to donate money to the Chinese Red Cross.
To find out more related to specific needed items, other information or questions about the Sichuan NGO Disaster Relief Coalition Office, please contact Zhang Zhe (+86-10-6778-3115, zhangzhe@jgichina.org), who is the Beijing-based liaison for them. We would prefer that correspondence be channeled through her so as to avoid overwhelming the already over-worked team in Chengdu.
In the long-term, we will plan to collect donations towards re-building, repairing and re-supplying the damaged schools. We expect that our Chengdu Office will be able to accept monetary donations next month (sometime in June), and we will begin to gather more detailed information about needs and costs once the urgent medical and physical needs of the people in those areas have been met.