AnnualReport for HANDA Social Integration and Economic Advancement Project
Project Background
In Yunnan province,many people affected byleprosy live in isolated villages in mountains orvery remote areas. Apart from their disabilities, the people affected by leprosy andtheir families live in abject poverty with poor living conditions and communityinfrastructure. Incomplete statisticsfrom Dali prefectureindicate that the average annual per capita income in the leprosy villages isabout Rmb500. To feed themselves, people still work in theirfields despite their disabilities, making it even more difficult forrecovery. All these breed low self-image among the villagers, which is not favorable for social re-integration. To solve this problem becomesan imminent task of HANDA. It is hardly possible to count on local governmentfor increasing living subsidy in near future as leprosy is not an importantor instant issue for the government. Therefore self-supported and mutual help will bethe only way out from this difficult situation. According to the field investigation and analysisto the data with the villagers, together work out the plan for incomegeneration activities such as farming, livestock breeding or planting. Needytraining and experts were invited to improve the capability and knowledge ofvillagers.
Project Duration:
From May 2014 to May 2015
Project Summary
In the year of 2014, the project focused on working in 9 villages, onein Guangdong and eight in Yunnan. We provided funds and skill trainings forpeople who are starting IGA such as bee keeping, tea planting, raising pig andgoat, mushrooms. The project tried to make the most use of local resources inthe production and connect the production to the urban demand by developing newproducts, redesigning the products and integrating the life stories of theirproducers into the marketing. Besides, HANDA tried to strengthen their self-help capabilities; buildnetwork for the products they produced; improve their financialsituation and confidence; end the stigma and discrimination against; helppeople to reintegrate into the society and the support HANDA activities. We triedto sell the products through online shops, social media and local countryfairs.
Project goal and objectives:
Goal: To improve the social and financial states aswell as the social participation of leprosy-affected people by elevating theirself-developing abilities and building a fair marketing network of theirproducts.
Objective 1: Improving the abilities to earn aliving and the economic state of people affected by leprosy, meanwhile explorea new model to keep the sustainable operation of HANDA projects
Beneficiaries
1) In the short term, the direct beneficiaries of the project are villagersfrom 9 villages inShangpingvillagg, Jiudaoyakou, Maowangdong, Luosongdi,Raomalu, Shanshiping, Tengmiehe, Luduo, Yuer and Mayidui villages in Yunnan.
2) In the long term, the beneficiaries are all people affected byleprosy who had to be isolated from the society;
3) The indirect beneficiaries are the family members of people affectedby leprosy;
4) The project can also change the public awareness and people’s livesafter more and more people know better about leprosy and communities ofleprosy-affected people and buy their products.
Action Plan:
What HANDA really focuses, during the whole project, is the idea ofparticipative development by the means of professional ways employed in socialwork of which the core concept is “helping others, helping yourself”. Theproject is aimed at elevating the abilities of people affected by leprosy, withmore attention to the abilities to make a living, creating opportunities andproviding platforms to change the villagers themselves. HANDA wants to promotea welfare model that cultivates people’s abilities and supports HANDA projectoperation in a sustainable way.
Output 1.1:Technical advice, support to develop, market & run income generatingactivities
Activity 1.1.1: Set up a management group in each village
A management group was set upin Boluo, Guangdong, 8 groups were set up in Xiaoshuitang, Jiudaoyakou,Maowangdong, Huangcaoba, Luosongdi, Tengmiehe, Shanshiping and Luosongdi inYunnan. Each group consisted with at least 5 members.
Activity 1.1.2Providetraining on daily affair management and financemanagement to management group
Trainings on how to managing funds (and finance management as well) wasgiven to management groups in 4 villages who were elected by villagers. Theywere all clear with their role and responsibilities to supervise the use of thefunds and the proceeds for community development funds.
Activity 1.1.3 Provide training on product quality control and skilltraining
It is veryimportant to assure the products are made with quality so as to compete withlocal market and also keeps its sustainability. Meanwhile improve the people’sawareness of the quality control. Training was given to bee keepers, managementgroup and packaging group (consist with villagers themselves) in Boluo inGuangdong, and villagers in Maowangdong village, Yunnan. After training,villagers had improved understanding on the importance of quality control, tokeep the product competitive, it is very crucialto maintain hygiene and not tofeed sugar or add water in the process of making honey
Output 1.2: Setup a fair marketing network
Activity 1.2.2Establish and run Taobao e-shop to sell the products
Online shop has become very popular shopping tool in China. We keptupdating HANDA online shop regularly from time to time about the products wemade from villages. Collecting customer’s feedbacks and taking actions forimprovement.
Activity 1.2.3Establish a trade marketing channel in local county fairs
Each month in Guangzhou and Kunming, HANDA will participate the localfarmer’s market to promote the products. It is a platform for public people getaware of not only the products but also story of village where those productscame from.
Activity 1.2.4 Explore more local charity shops to sell the products
Apart from online shopand partner with local NGOs who are running social enterprise, the staff triedto participate in farmer’s market in Guangzhou and Kunming each month, sellingvillage products and publicize knowledge about leprosy.
In one of our charitybazaars, some people said: “Your honey tastes really good. We are going to makesome honey cakes and we might need some honey. We want to buy some from youlater if we need honey.”
We explored and maintainedstable cooperative relationship with 4 local NGOs who are helping us to sellthe products
Output 1.3 Develop new craft products
Activity 1.3.1 Samples bought for villagers to make
In order to help people make more eye catching crafts, we bought 3bottled honey from supermarket, we also tried the blind test for people to test4 different types of honey (one from HANDA, another 3 from supermarket), testresult showed that the price, color, taste and smell of honey that villagersmade got very positive feedbacks from potential customers.
Output1.4 Promote the developing model to other leprosy villages
Activity 1.4.1 organize a conversation betweenleprosy villages
In November, we took 5 villagers from Boluo villageto visit Sian village, HANDA president Feng Keteng also jointed the trip. Weinvited villagers from Sian who used to raise honey to meet these 5 new friendsand share their skills with each other. Mr. Feng has rich experience in beekeeping, he gave lots of instructive suggestions to other villagers.
Activity 1.4.2 Representatives of the managementgroups visit other leprosy villages and give advices
At the beginning of May, 2014, 3 members fromHuangcaobamanagement group paid visitto Luduo village. During the visit, wehelped and set up management groups of three to increase economic incomes forLuduo and improve the living conditions for its 7 villagers. Villager Li was incharge of contacting with other organizations who joined us in this welfaretour while Zhang was in charge of taking care of the elder villagers and Lintake care of reception of visitors.
In August, 3 members from Xiaotudi management groupvisited Jiudaoyakou village, they met and shared experiences and knowledge with9 families who are raising goat, topics such as disease prevention andtreatment, and discussed a satisfied selling price together.
In November, management group from Luoshongdifollowed our team and paid visit to Maowangdong village, we helped to set up anorganic rice farming group by 5 families in Maowangdong, they learnt from eachother and also took responsibility for marketing. 2014 was the first year forthem to trial organic rice, villagers were motivated and enthusiastic as theywere told by villagers from Luoshongdi that the demands for organic rice isvery big and the price for the rice is very appealing.
Output2.1 Promote a healthy interaction between the villagers and the publicActivity 2.1.1 Environment improvement in thevillage
The Guangdongteam motivated volunteers to clear out the garbage in the village to improveenvironmental hygiene. Volunteers also weeded in the fruit tree field with thevillagers for twice. Though a small incinerator was built in the village byHANDA’s supported, some garbage had been in the village for decades. Especiallythe plastic materials were not handled properly. They greatly accumulatedaround the village and in the ponds. On 20-22th of March, 4 HANDA staff and 3volunteers went to clean the environment of BolouShangpin Village. They removedthe trash by incineration and weeded. Then, a sharing section on the harm ofplastic material to the human body and the environment was conduction toeducate the villagers.
Somevillagers mentioned that the garbage was there for a few decades. They wouldnot clear up the environment without the motivation from us as they were oldand nobody wanted to be the first.
On the 25thof May, the team organized a mini charity tour and brought public into thevillage. This was aimed at trying to have charity tour in leprosy village withthe participation of people affected by leprosy and served as a pilot. Therewere 4 staff, 1 volunteer, 7 public people and 1 journalist participated in.Activities include barbecuing beside the sunflower field planted by theplanting team of the village and had ate with villagers. The beekeeping groupshowed the public the honeybees they raised and interacted with the public. Onepeople encourage a team member that the discrimination of the society isreduced now, as long as they produce product with good quality, the sale willnot have big problem. While the journalist thought that the environment of thevillage and the income of villagers were not the main concern. With older ageof villagers as time passed, the village lacked vitality and villagers hadlimited interaction with the outside. He hoped more people would get to knowleprosy villages and visit them.
On the 14thof June. The team organized the second charity tour. They published theinformation about this tour to the public and finally recruited 16 publicpeople to participate in. The activities include: forming a reception team bythe villagers and prepare food, having lunch with the public under the lycheetrees, guiding the public to the farm to pick vegetables. The managing teamguided the public to walk around the village. The beekeeping team showed thepublic the honeybees introduced some interesting knowledge of beekeeping tothem. The sunflower planting team and HANDA staff guided them to the sunflowerfield and took pictures. As it was the first time that charity tour is beingconducted in full scale, the villagers were nervous when preparing forreception. There was also a little disagreement but it eventually ran smoothly.4 university students from Hong Kong talked to some public people and thevillagers and they hoped that they could visit the village again.
Activity 2.1.2Two sales in urban communities withvillagers participating
On 27ThSeptember,project staff in Guangdong took 7 villagers (5 bee keepers and 2 members frommanagement group) to Guangzhou and participated in the farmer’s market. It wasa good opportunity for the villagers to introduce their products and have closeinteraction with public. Uncle Hu said to us “after looking at the honey onother stalls, I found out that our honey are the best quality, both packing andquality”. In 2014, the operation of bee keeping group and the production ofhoney is going on a smooth track, villagers are taking initiatives in themanagement, quality control, packing, sterilizing, etc.
On 27thSeptember, Yunnan staff invited 5 villagers from Maowangdong village toparticipate in the farmers market in Kunming. Villagers were encouraged to introduceand promote their products to the consumers, at beginning they were quite shybut later on when a people bought 2 kilos of organic rice from them they becamemore confident and active. In total they got 1,532 RMB.
Activity 2.1.3 Make a short film of villagers story
In total, we made 4 short videos of people inGuangdong and Yunnan.
Still wanting a better life (even people hadsuffered from hardship, even they are physically disabled, they still strive tolive a better life)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChJYXz3Tbuo
Bee keepers in Boluo,Guangdong (we use this successful model to encourage others living in differentvillage, and also the public)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-4b0Lw9WQY
Charity tour to Yunnan Luduo (to call on moresocial attention to care about people affected by leprosy especially themarriage issue of the offspring of people affected by leprosy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TfFJirP6jw
I want to go to school (there were 17 newly identified villagesthis year in Yunnan, the video shows there was very strong stigma anddiscrimination in that area)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Q5LHbIwxg
Output2.2 The public know about the village and support the developing projects
Activity 2.2.1 Print of products pamphlet
We printed 1000 copies of pamphlet and labels(attached on each honey bottle with villager’s story), the printing materialsare not only for the product promotion, but also spread the information ofpeople affected by leprosy in the village
Activity 2.2.2 Volunteers promote and sell theproducts in urban communities
In Guangzhou, there were 12 farmer’s market a year,each time there were at least 2 volunteers participated and helped to sell theproducts. Besides, volunteers also helped to make delivery service(when peoplein town ordered products from online shop) at their free time.
Activity 2.2.3 Develop a cultural product based onthe stories of villagers
We designedand printed out 1000 copies of album (beauty of the spirit), a story of 9leprosy affected people. It is not only a book to demonstrate the talents ofthe people affected by leprosy but also their willpower to live better livesregardless of their painful life experiences in the past. A reader who boughtthe book from HANDA online shop left a message ““The art book, Beauty of Sprits,is incredible. It is amazing that the disable elder people in the leprosyvillage can create such marvellous work. I was afraid of the people affected byleprosy but I think if I have a chance, I would definitely visit the leprosyvillages.”
ProjectEffect:
Since we have started the community developmentprogram in Boluo since 2012, people who involved showed great interest theyactively participated in all aspects of the program. 8 villages in Yunnan thatwe started this year, they are still at initial stage, hopefully we can see moreachievements in 2015.
In 2014, we and villagers together sold 500 kilosof honey at the price of RMB 48570, RMB 26,834 was for HANDA to cover theproject operation cost. There was aprofit of RMB 21,736. Each of 5 bee keeper got about RMB 5,000 profit a year,and RMB 4,347 was taken from the income as community communal funds (managed byvillagers’ themselves).
The participation of villagers in all aspects ofthe project not only helped to build up their capacity but also boosted theirself-confidence.
Finance Summary:
Please refer to the attachment
Acknowledgement:
On behalf of all HANDA members, please accept mysincere thanks to your continuous support to help to improve the life qualityand dignity of people affected by leprosy in China.
Yourssincerely
Dr.Michael Chen
Secretary General
HANDA Rehabilitation & Welfare Association
