NZ help for quake victims goes a long way

The amount of money they raised to help victims of a devastating earthquake in China's Sichuan province was a pittance compared with the scale of damage, estimated to be worth US$6 billion ($9.3 billion) to the region's agriculture alone.

But with a little bit of Kiwi ingenuity and focus, the New Zealand China Friendship Society was able to make $36,000 stretch to help more than 10,000 Chinese - who have lost most of their assets and farmlands to the quake - rebuild not just their lives, but their future.

"On the scale of things, we know that the money is just a drop in the bucket, so it was a conscious decision we made to use it for rehabilitation rather than relief," said society spokesman Dave Bromwich.

"Small communities were targeted, and our efforts were to reconstruct their livelihoods, to help them get their lives back on stream and to give them hope for the future."

The magnitude 8.0 earthquake last May left nearly 87,000 people dead or missing, injured 375,000 and left more than five million people homeless, according to official estimates.

More than 30 million people in rural communities lost most of their assets, thousands of hectares of farmland were destroyed and millions of farm animals died after the quake, a United Nations report said.

With further aid money of $220,000 from the New Zealand Government and its agencies, it embarked on four projects to help these victims - focusing on health, farming, business and tourism.

"The total converted to nearly one million yuan, which was enough for us to carry out significant projects in the four areas badly damaged by the earthquake," said Mr Bromwich, who visited the project sites in China last month.

Villagers relocated to Lueyang were introduced to a new variety of high-yielding walnuts and taught how to graft chestnuts to diversify their farming and increase their incomes.

The society also bought materials to reconstruct a 1.5km stretch of irrigation channels to help 880 farming families in the vegetable growing area in Pengzhou County.

In the poorest township to be hit by the quake in Fengxian County, it helped fund the reconstruction of the Honghuapu Township clinic, which serviced the medical needs of 6000 villagers in the area.

The fourth project - the development of an organic tea industry in Danjingshan - is to help reignite tourism, which was once the lifeblood of the province, employing 400,000 workers and generating 121.7 billion yuan ($27.6 billion) last year before the quake.

Society members in Auckland were given an update by Mr Bromwich at a meeting yesterday.

"They may be battered, but the Chinese are in no way beaten. Their mood is different now as many are seeing the possibility that they can truly fully recover," he said.

He said the society was also working with Chinese partners to teach business concepts to the villagers, and provide co-operative and marketing training to vegetable growers, to help them increase their incomes.

Mr Bromwich said his next "project" would be to lead a "projects tour" to China soon for those wanting to see the difference Kiwi contributions have made to the lives of some of the worst-hit victims.