Local governments of Tibet, Yunnan, Sichuan and Qinghai have recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement to create what is being called the Shangri-La Ecotourism Region.

Officials from Tibet’s third-largest city, Changdu, reached the agreement with Yunnan’s Diqing, Ganzi in Sichuan and Yushu in Qinghai. All participating areas will remove barriers in areas including policy, transportation and services.

Although details are still not very clear, we are hopeful that the agreement will bring ecotourism that is both sustainable and beneficial to local residents to this beautiful part of China.

We especially hope it assists Yushu, which was struck by a deadly earthquake in April of this year, with its rebuilding efforts. To get a feel for Yushu, check out this video of its annual horse festival, which takes place in July.

In our ongoing efforts to assist those in Qinghai who suffered greatly from the Yushu earthquake, WildChina follows our peers in the travel world and their suggestions for providing aid to the area, in addition to providing our own insights.

One news item that particularly caught our eye was travel guru Peter Greenberg‘s article, Volunteer Vacations: Disaster Assistance in Haiti, Chile & China, on how to get involved in aid efforts to these three disaster-stricken areas. Combining service and travel, Greenberg’s article provides concrete ways to contribute to these regions’ health, community, and rebuilding efforts.

One of our highlights from the article is UNICEF’s efforts for women and children in Yushu. Greenberg writes,

The agency is [...] joining hands with China’s National Working Committee on Children and Women to establish ‘child-friendly spaces’ where young survivors of the earthquake can receive psycho-social support in a protective environment.

In addition to providing relief materials, UNICEF will be providing very important and valuable services to preserve the psyche of those surviving in Yushu. For more information, visit UNICEF’s homepage.

A complete list of Greenberg’s ways to provide disaster assistance can be found on Peter Greenberg’s blog.

Explore the ways that WildChina is helping in Yushu on the WildChina blog.

Supplies for The Orphanage School/Rokpa arrives in Yushu
The supplies truck that Europe director Veronique d’Antras had help send out to Yushu has arrived yesterday and goods have been distributed to the Rokpa children. We were told that the excess goods will be distributed to folks in need in the countryside around Yushu. (Note that general Aid and support is yet to reach these areas outside of Yushu Town.)

Tashi returns to Yushu to provide on-the-ground support
Tashi, our former WildChina colleague and studying doctor, is on his way back to Yushu from Shanghai today. WildChina needs someone strong and knowledgeable on the ground to provide comfort, materials, and direct the distribution to our friends in Yushu. He is a true local who knows the place well he is well-placed to assist us in developing an aid process. He will bring whatever he can in terms of medicine and supplies.

Samdeg to speak with Lama
Samdeg, who lost his mother and sister in the earthquake, has been put in touch with a Lama who is a friend of Veronique’s. We hope that by introducing them, they can find ways to help each other through these tough times.

Without the help of all our friends in Yushu, we would not have had the opportunity or the good fortune to successfully run trips in Qinghai province. They are like family to us, and there is much they can do to help the current situation in Yushu. We need to help them in the hope that they can then help others.

Tashi (扎西) in his native Qinghai Province

Tashi Maqu Dorje is originally from Yushu and is a former WildChina colleague. At the end of 2006, Tashi left WildChina to pursue a medical degree. One of his greatest attributes is his almost native command of the English language.

During the summer of 2007, he was our local trip planner for the Tibetan Grand Horse Racing Festival and luxury camp in Yushu. He worked closely with WildChina Directors Veronique d’Antras, Sunshine Shang and Paul Moreno in making the trip a reality. He put WildChina in touch with the many people, including his family who worked at our camp in Bartang (around 45 kilometers south of Yushu).

Samdeg is a schoolteacher who has been our camp manager in Yushu and helped in the trekking portion of our trip, setting up the remote camp. His relatives had grazing rights to the land where we set up camp, and our camp gear has been stored in his uncles’s house in Bartang for the past two years.

Samdeg’s family had a house in Yushu near the Rokpa-sponsored Orphanage School. He is a very kind, patient and diligent man, making the daily drive to the village school where he teaches. It was because of this that he was not home in the morning of the quake. His late mother and sister were tragically not as lucky, and he is suffering greatly as a result of these two losses.

Niyma Tenzing is the director and manager of the Rokpa Orphanage School in Yushu. He is instrumental in running and maintaining the orphanage, which cares for around 500 children. A number of graduates from the Orphanage School have attained a proficient degree of English at the University of Xining, and some become Tibetan doctors. A number have also returned to Yushu to further expand and run the orpanage’s activities and education.

WildChina deeply thanks our friends, partners, and clients for their continued interest in helping those in need in Yushu, Qinghai province, which was recently hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake.

As we have received many emails from past clients and friends asking about the situation, we wanted to provide further on-the-ground news from Yushu.

Our Europe Team Director, Veronique d’Antras, has been at the forefront of WildChina’s efforts to help the people of Yushu. After coordinating a truckload of supplies to be sent to Yushu with Tashi, one of our Yushu partners and a Qinghai native, she hopes that it has arrived. The road from Xining to Yushu – a major route into the Yushu area – was damaged by the earthquake, and traffic has subsequently been delayed.

While there has been an incredible influx of volunteers into the region, there are a few setbacks that are making the distribution of aid more difficult. For one, areas outside of Yushu that were affected by the earthquake are incredibly remote, meaning that rural villagers are still in most need of aid. Furthermore, the Tibetan/Mandarin language barrier, altitude sickness, and cold weather, including snow and hail in the region, has slowed down volunteers. Because of the inclement weather, several aid trucks overturned on the road from Xining to Yushu. Several journalists noted that long lines were forming for food distribution.

A mass prayer ceremony for the victims was held by monks and others in Yushu on April 20th, following the cremation of around 1,000 bodies by the Yushu Tibetan monks on April 17th.

On a positive note, one of our Yushu partners, Samdeg, has been located. He was previously deemed unharmed, but was unreachable for a few days after the earthquake occurred. We are now working with him to set up WildChina tents to provide those in the region with temporary housing

Furthermore, Xinhua reports that post-quake reconstruction has been on the agenda. A reporter learned on Monday, April 19 from the Government of Qinghai Province that the overall objective of reconstruction will be building a high-altitude ecotourism city. (Source: Xinhua, April 19, 2010)

The Chinese government declared a nationwide period of mourning with flags at half mast on Wednesday afternoon, April 21st (Beijing time), to express condolences to earthquake victims. All public entertainment was put on hold. (Source: Guardian UK, April 20, 2010)

If you are interested in donating to Rokpa International on behalf of The Orphanage School in Yushu, please see the following information:

UPDATED: To donate anywhere outside of China (besides the UK), please visit the Rokpa Yushu Relief site. Here you can find account information for the preferred currency in which you wish to donate money. Your payment will be made directly to Rokpa’s Switzerland headquarters, where the money can be quickly obtained for relief use in Yushu.

Additionally, you can now pay through PayPal via Rokpa’s Yushu Relief blog. Simply click on the PayPal button and follow instructions.

For those living in the UK, please refer to the Rokpa UK site, originally linked on this post, for information on donating in British Pounds.

In recent days, WildChina has been working with our local partners to get on-the-ground knowledge of the Yushu tragedy, and to provide needed supplies and aid.

Since our last post on Yushu, we have been notified of the following:
- WildChina’s Europe Team Director, Veronique, hopes that the truck she helped coordinate to bring supplies to Yushu has arrived to the area. Since the road from Nansheng to Yushu was damaged by the earthquake, traffic has been slower.
- At this point, villages and other local areas outside of Yushu proper need the most aid.
- Volunteers are having some difficulty with relief efforts due to the language barrier and altitude sickness.
- One of our local Yushu partners, who was previously deemed unharmed but was unreachable, has been located and we are cooperating with him to distribute tents.

WildChina has decided to take a three-fold approach to our aid for those suffering in Yushu, which includes two NGOs and aid for our local partners and friends affected by the earthquake.
- Local partners: we are donating money to purchase medicine for our local partners’ families, in order to better facilitate their and their loved ones’ recovery from this tragedy.
- Orphans: we are donating money to The Orphanage School, which is run by international NGO Rokpa, to help those children orphaned in the region.
- Monks: we will also be donating to the Yushu chapter of Himalayan Consensus, an NGO dedicated to ethnic diversity and cultural sustainable development. The coordinator, Laurence Brahm, has sent goods to Damkar monastery where WildChina visits during journeys for the Tibetan Yushu Horse Festival.

How can you get involved in these aid efforts?
- For The Orphanage School/Rokpa, please visit their website and scroll to the bottom of the page on how to give Single and Regular donations online and via mail.
- To donate to Himalayan Consensus or WildChina’s local partners’ families, please email Alex at alex.grieves@wildchina.com with the subject line “Yushu donation.” Alex can provide you with contacts and donation information.

UPDATE: Follow Rokpa’s Yushu Relief blog for up-to-date information on developments in the area.

Have more questions about the situation in Yushu? Have other news from Qinghai, and ways to help? Please email Alex at alex.grieves@wildchina.com.

In addition to our efforts to provide emergency housing for earthquake victims, WildChina’s Europe Director, Veronique d’Antras, is working with a relief group to provide warm clothing, food, money and medical supplies to the area. The group will leave tomorrow (Saturday) morning for Yushu with their supplies. Their efforts are part of a quickly-moving influx of aid workers in recent days to the southern Qinghai area.

(Image via China Daily)

d’Antras is also working with the Yushu Orphanage School, in conjunction with WildChina’s local partner and Rokpa, an international NGO, to assist in evacuating the orphans and other family members to the countryside. Together, they are working to remove the children from the area as quickly as possible. In the meantime, they hope that these children will be housed in WildChina’s donated tents that are currently being set up.

Outside of our relief efforts, WildChina is closely monitoring the situation on the ground in Qinghai through communication with our local partners. To date, we have heard the following:

- Electricity is down in the area, and it is thus difficult to communicate with those who either no longer have cell service or whose phones have run out of power.
- Structures in Yushu are unsafe, and survivors are trying to vacate the area as quickly as possible.
- The children from the orphanage and school in Yushu are alive, although some have been injured. Sadly, two teachers have perished, and other orphanage staff have suffered injuries.
- The director of the orphanage recently met with Premier Wen Jiabao.

For more information on the situation in Yushu, please see the following articles and media:
- Latest updates: Qinghai earthquake (via China Daily)
- Donations, supplies flood into quake-hit NW China region (via Xinhua)
- Rescuers race against time (via China Daily)
- Video: Quake kills hundreds in Western China (via New York Times)

WildChina will update our blog as new information becomes available.