持续成长的上海向日葵慈善社 - 2015年03月13日

Sunflower, a registered non-governmental charity organization based in Changning District, is doing more than just helping with people’s immediate needs. It’s looking at the bigger picture.

Sun Bing, founder of Sunflower, was in the trade media industry before quitting his job to run the non-profit organization full time.

“It started from an online community, named Sunflower Charity Society. We (five volunteers) wanted to do service for the public,” Sun said.

They did a lot of work with local communities on weekends, like visiting nursing homes and a children’s hospital.

In July 2007, Sun quit his job to transform the organization.

After a year, he wasn’t able to register Sunflower. But after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Sun took part in some related projects and then joined a charitable foundation as a staff member.

“I left after a year because I had some different ideas and I went back to continue working to get the Sunflower registration done,” Sun said.

In January 2010, Sunflower was registered. And Sun wanted to do more than just common volunteer work like other organizations.

“They have professionals doing the work and our services weren’t that significant, so I wanted to go out and find the groups of people who really need our help,” he said.

Sunflower now focuses on projects related to migrant workers and their children.

Originally launched in 2012, the project titled “Shanghai trip for children of construction workers in Shanghai” brought many young children to Shanghai, where their parents work and live, so they can see what their parents have done for the city.

During Chinese New Year, 20 children from Jiangxi, Anhui, Henan, Hubei and Chongqing came to Shanghai to be with their parents.

“This was our first winter project, in the past we usually did it as a summer camp,” Sun said. “This time we focused on two groups, sanitation workers and domestic helpers.”

Many migrant workers’ children aren’t able to see their parents because they come to big cities like Shanghai to eke out a living and leave their kids with relatives in their hometowns.

Later this year, the project will expand outside Shanghai, as Sunflower is considering launching a new program that invites local Shanghai families to other places, get to know their current situation, their agricultural and sideline products and come back with recommendations.

The aim is to drive economic development in less developed areas.

Sun said this will promote local products and change production models. As new industrial patterns generate more jobs, some workers will be able to return home, he said.

The new program’s first stop is likely to be a county in Jiangxi Province.

This is not the organization’s first time initiating projects outside Shanghai. For years, they’ve traveled to places in Jiangxi and Gansu provinces with programs like voluntary teaching in remote area schools.

“I think it coincides with my personal experience, because my parents were both ‘educated youths’ in Guizhou (Province), I went to primary school and middle School in Zunyi, so I always felt like doing something for other parts of the country,” Sun said.

Doing charity means a lot to people.

“Many think doing short-term teaching trips in Gansu doesn’t mean much, but every time we leave the children don’t want us to go,” he said. “We can bring them many things from the outside world. Many have only gone as far as the county town 2-3 kilometers away by the age of 20.

“It’s hard to imagine the poverty in these places when you haven’t seen it.”