We are looking to get in touch with small or community based Chinese organisations in China.

Project 008 is a new Irish based Not-for-profit (NFP) initiative linking businesses with small community and social NFP organisations worldwide. We send expert business professionals for consultancies with small not for profit organisations in the areas of financial management, fundraising, management, HR, organisational development etc. There is no cost to the local organisation.

We are looking to contact community and social NFPs in China for our upcoming pilot program in the next 2-6 months. We are aiming to support organisations that are developing and in need of support. The kind you cannot easily find by ways of a google search.

If you know of any organisations that may benefit from support and advice in these areas, please put us in touch.

Much appreciated.

Hi kate008,

Yesterday I visited the Ringa Community Nursery (仁安幼儿园) near Shangri-la and think it might be of interest to you, or other readers for that matter.

This school for children from the six villages in the Ringa Valley is educating more than 90 children aged 4 through 6, teaching them to speak and write Mandarin Chinese, which will allow them to attend public school after the age of 6. Prior to this, most children in the Ringa Valley were unable to attend public school because they lacked the necessary Mandarin Chinese skills.

The nursery also teaches literacy in the children's native Tibetan, which helps them stay in touch with their own culture. Tibetan literacy classes are taught by local volunteers who work at the nearby Banyan Tree Ringha.

The nursery is hoping to add English courses next year, but is in need of funds.

Most young children in the villages around the Ringa Valley are raised by their grandparents because their parents are off working. The grandparents are often unable to look after the children, who frequently play in the road and engage in other innocent enough but dangerous play habits.

The Ringa Community Nursery provides a safe place for the children to play, as well as previously unimaginable education opportunities. It also teaches the children basic hygiene and health knowledge and provides one hot bath a week, something most of the kids don't have access to in their own homes.

I was quite impressed by the dedication of the two volunteer teachers at the nursery, one a Naxi girl from Lijiang, the other a Han girl from Zhejiang. Aside from a few Banyan Tree employees, the children were the only locals I encountered in the valley that could speak Chinese. Nobody from the valley has ever graduated from university before, but I could sense that some of the giggling kids I met at the nursery would change that.

For more information about the Ringa Community Nursery, check their bilingual website at www.ringa-kindy.org/

For information about how to donate to the nursery, go to www.ringa-kindy.org/page/help/support.php

Hello Kate,

At Pact, an international NGO, we are working with small grassroots organizations ran by people living with HIV (PLHIV) in four sites across Yunnan and Guangxi to implement livelihoods development interventions for people affected by HIV. The interventions have been designed to help local PLHIV and their families deal with the destabilizing economic shocks that are often experienced by people when they are first diagnosed HIV positive, including
job losses, business failures and the accumulation of expensive medical debts that seem impossible to repay. Through the creation of small peer-led entrepreneur groups, local PLHIV in urban and rural areas have been supported to develop small businesses to help them rebuild their livelihoods, self-confidence and social networks. A micro-loan scheme has also been included in this intervention.

We are entering a phase in our program when we will soon be no longer able to support these nascent organizations. While success has been achieved programatically as well in developing local ownership of projects, the long-term organizational stability of our partners would be benefited from further capacity building activities that Project008 may be able to offer. Our goal is for our partners to be able to have the capacity to support the scale up of this project in other sites.

To learn more about our program and our partners, please feel free to contact me at: flamacchia at pactworld.org.

Heart to Heart is a productive and innovative Kunming non-profit www.ynlianxin.org that works with immigrant populations in the city, particularly recyclers and trash collectors.

Exidea, www.exidea.org, is a rural development non-profit run by university students in Kunming.

China California Heart Watch, www.chinacal.org, is a non-profit that works with heart disease in rural Yunnan.

And if I can tout our own non-profit, Village Progress, www.villageprogress.com, is working on rural development projects mostly in Lincang county.

Thanks to all for the information. We really appreciate the great response. We are still hoping to roll out our pilot in the coming 6 months although we have been forced to slow down for this year.

I look forward to making contact with all the recommended orgs in the new year.
If anyone else wants to add a group to get in touch with, please do.
Thanks again.

Sent you an email