Region: China
Author: Green Earth Volunteers, Wang Yongchen and ECOLOGIA
Consortium Member: Virtual Foundation Director (ECOLOGIA)
Status: Completed - Final Report
Budget: $1877
Collected: $1877
Needs: $0
Result: To enable Wang Yongchen, a dynamic environmental leader, to travel to the United States to participate in an international peace conference in June 2005, and to inform American audiences about her work.
Donors: The Olive Branch Fund through the Schwab Fund for Charitable Giving [California], May 2005
Comment: Wang Yongchen is an award-winning journalist and public speaker. For over a decade she has traveled around China documenting environmental damage and remediation efforts. She has won numerous cash awards, which she donates to Chinese environmental organizations. This is a wonderful opportunity for her to bring her message of hope and conviction to the United States.
Wang Yongchen's recent successful work organizing to defend the Nu River in western China has earned her international acclaim, including the Condé Nast Traveler's 2004 Environmental Award. To quote from their feature article, "Fifty-year-old journalist Wang Yongchen, has been uniquely effective in taking advantage of shifts in Chinese culture—fewer restrictions on reporters, growing ecological concern among certain government officials, and more interaction between Chinese and international groups—to bring the Nu River hydroelectric power proposal to the attention of her countrymen and the world. "I see a merging of the roles of journalists and activists here in China," says Wang, who has worked for China National Radio for 20 years. "Journalists see everything, and because of that, they have some power. Journalists are considered kings without a crown in China." The nongovernmental organization she co-founded in 1996, Green Earth Volunteers (GEV), has for the past four years been hosting monthly "journalist salons," where experts are recruited to speak to a group of reporters and activists about current environmental issues....more at www.concierge.com/cntraveler.
Time Frame: We need to raise the money before the end of April 2005, so that Yongchen can make her plane reservations and her US visa application well in advance of the Bruderhof conference.
Planned Itinerary
1) CONFIRMED Participation in Seeking Peace Conference at Maple Ridge Bruderhof, June 10-12, 2005.
The conference organizers have invited Wang Yongchen to participate. At this event, an outstanding range of speakers including a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a Holocaust survivor, a Roman Catholic cardinal, and a survivor of the Rwandan genocide will share how their personal search for peace led them to work for global peace.
Location: Maple Ridge Bruderhof, 10 Hellbrook Lane, Ulster Park, NY 12487
Photo of the Nu River, at right, taken by Wang Yongchen.
2) UNCONFIRMED Travel in the company of American river protection organizations, to visit some threatened Western US rivers. The goal is to write an article and develop presentations for Chinese and for American audiences, comparing river protection issues in the United States with those in China.
Budget
Revised May 2005
| Airfare (Round Trip, Beijing - New York) | $1425 |
| US Visa | $150 |
| Health Insurance | $82 |
| Postage | $ 56 |
| Conference fee | $ 50 |
| Subtotal | $1707 |
| VF administrative fee | $170 |
| Total Requested | $1877 |