Most of us have been saddened, but not directly touched, by the natural disasters in Asia in recent weeks, the earth quake relief efforts in China and the thwarted international aid attempts after tropical cyclone Nargis hit the coast of Myanmar, devastating large parts of the low-lying Irrawaddy delta, in the closely-controlled country,
For Christine Miao, an East Lyme High student, the Chinese quake hit a little closer to home. Miao’s parents grew up in China and went to college in Sichuan Province, the epicenter of the May earthquakes.
Wenfeng Miao and his wife, Lei Lui, studied medicine together at Southwestern University in Chengdu, China. Miao does medical science liason with Sanofi Aventis and Lui recently joined Pfizer in Groton. They encouraged their daughter to do something after the quake devastated many of the remote towns in the Chinese province.
“They were really hit hard by it,” said Christine of her parents. She felt moved to do something to help people in Myanmar, too. So the fifteen-year-old contacted people she had worked with on volunteer and fundraising efforts. She also credits Alice Pembrook, East Lyme High School social studies teacher, as serving as a mentor.
The young volunteer organized classmates at her school and friends through her family’s church, the Norwich Chinese Church, which worships at the Alliance Church of Norwich, 35 Wawecus Hill Road in Norwich. They formed the East Lyme High Disaster Relief Fund. Youth from several area communities, including Ledyard and Waterford got involved.
Between a bake sale at Stop and Shop in East Lyme on June 8, a dinner at the East Lyme Middle School on Friday, June 13 and donations collected at school, Miao and her friends have raised roughly $1800 to contribute to worthy causes that can help people survive and rebuild.
The following youth helped with one or both events: Sherry Xue, Cherry Liu, Nishani Hewage, Jing Jiao, Andrea Chrunyk, David Zhou, Ran Liu, Theresa Lan, Casey Li, Alicia Lan, Jacob Wang, Amy Li, Matthew Lin, Rachel Lyons, Caitlin Gebhard, Dean Walston and Theresa Nguyen.
“We were really proud that we got the entire community involved,” Christine said. About 60 people came to the dinner, which with donated food from area restaurants and businesses was an eclectic combination of pizza, pasta, Chinese food and all-America desserts.
Miao is modest about her involvement in pulling off the two fundraising events and credits many others for pitching in to bake goods and work the sale and dinner. Students, families and local businesses all pitched in. Jacob Wang, a student at Waterford Middle School, started a fund drive at his own school.
“The volunteers did most of the work and I just freaked out, worrying if we had enough food at the dinner,” she said.
Area businesses that donated food or provided gift cards for a raffle included The Shack, La Belle Aurore and Dairy Queen in Niantic, both of the East Lyme restaurants that go by Yummy Yummy, one serving pizza in Flanders area, the other featuring Asian cuisine and sushi in Niantic Village.
With the success of fundraising, the volunteers are still figuring out the best way to get their donations to intended recipients.
“We expect to send some of the money to the Hong Kong Red Cross because they have a direct fund for the earthquake,” Christine said.
For Myanmar, formerly Burma, where the government has resisted aid assistance from other nations and international organizations, it gets more complicated. Miao has been in discussions with Steven Hulme, the former pastor at St. John’s Episcopal Church in East Lyme, a neighbor. He first went to Burma in 1987, and now runs the Karen Emergency Relief Fund (KERF).
Hulme and others founded the charity in 1997, soon after he retired, to provide humanitarian assistance, including food, shelter, medical and health supplies and to provide educational and self-help projects for the Karen people. This is an indigenous ethnic minority group of about 11 million people who have lived in the mountainous region along the border of Burma and Thailand for many centuries, according to KERF.
“I admire Christine and the others for what they have done,” Hulme said. “They did a beautiful job.”
The challenge in getting funds into Myanmar, he said, means working around the country’s authorities. After a youth center and hospital in Burma, funded by his organization, were destroyed by the Burmese army, they have opened a school in Thailand for the orphans and children of migrant Karen workers. These children cannot attend Thai schools, he said.
Hulmes’ advice to individuals and organizations seeking to get aid to Burmese people is to work with the network of churches and organizations in Burma and on the Thai side of the border that are able to get supplies into the country. He said the local Burmese people who do this are at great risk of being shot by soldiers or imprisoned by the government for their efforts.
For more information about the East Lyme High School Disaster Relief Fund, contact Christine at christinekmiao@yahoo.com. See KERF at www.karenemergency.org