Note: A video version of this article will be posted on our Youtube channel at a later date. The video will give a better visual understanding of the situation in Jiangkou and the families we visited. Keep a lookout for the video by subscribing to our Youtube channel!
On June 19th, Guiping, a city in Guangxi, experienced a major flash flood.
As part of our international trip, we had originally planned on traveling to Jiangkou Town and Tongxin Town in Guiping, Guangxi, to visit the families we give monthly donations to. However, because of the flood that occurred, the road into the town was sealed off, ultimately causing our trip to Guangxi to be canceled.
As a result of the devastating flood, many families’ houses and personal belongings were also destroyed. Working with our local volunteers in Guangxi who provided us with updates of the situation, Lantern Foundation conducted disaster relief efforts for various families in Jiangkou and Tongxin Town.
After the flood cleared up, our volunteers in Guangxi traveled to Jiangkou and Tongxin Town to visit families impacted by the flood and those that we had originally planned on visiting. Out of the ten families we aided because of the flood, we also completed family check-ins for four families, with the goal of understanding the situations of each family. In total, we donated $5000 to all these families — these funds would go toward rebuilding damaged houses, providing for medical costs, purchasing food and nutrition, and paying for school fees. Following our trip, we have sponsored an additional five families on a monthly basis.
Peng Wenhui, a seventh-grade student who lives in Jiangkou, was diagnosed with leukemia a couple of years ago. Shortly after Wenhui’s diagnosis, her little sister was also diagnosed with leukemia. According to Wenhui’s grandmother, after their mother found out that both her daughters had leukemia, she abandoned the family. Because of the intense financial stress and lack of support for the family, their father also left afterward, and only the girls’ grandma was left to take care of them. However, due to the high medical costs and the family’s inability to pay for them, Wenhui’s little sister passed away recently. Now, Wenhui lives alone with her grandmother, and the two rely on their neighbors for financial support, a method that has become unsustainable over time.
Another family we met was the Liu family. Sheng Yanfen, the mother and now widow, lives in Gushan Village in Tongxin Town, taking care of her three kids and her husband’s little brother (her brother-in-law), who experiences a mental disability. Her oldest son, Liu Jingfa, is in fourth grade; her second daughter, Liu Manman, is in second grade; and her youngest son, Liu Minghui, is in first grade. Because her brother-in-law can not work and she must take care of the kids, she relies on basic farming to feed her kids. Our volunteers noted that the kids are malnourished because they can not receive sufficient nutrition from their mother’s crops.
Pictured above is the Yuan Family. The family has two kids, one boy and one girl who both will begin middle school in the fall. The father, Yuan Bosen, is a single-dad, who takes care of both the kids and his 80-year-old mother. Because of a previous accident, Bosen became blind, which has created additional challenges for the family and for Bosen’s work. Bosen’s wife left the family a few years ago due to the hardships they faced and has not returned since, causing the kids to become left-behind children. Our volunteers learned that their home collapsed because of the flood, leaving them to live in a neighbor’s house as of now.
In September, both kids in the Yang family (pictured above) will be attending sixth grade. Their mother, Yang Xingyan, lives with a mental disability that majorly affects her daily activities. As a result, only the kids’ father can work and provide for the family. Every morning, he travels all throughout the village in search of trash that could be valuable and could be sold. This method of earning money has left the family in poverty, with the kids experiencing malnutrition. To help out the family, the kids are also subjected to laborious chores and activities such as cutting down nearby trees. Walking into the home, our volunteers described how piles of trash (bottles, plastic, etc.) littered their home. One of our volunteers noted that “it was like a mountain inside the home.”
Our volunteers had also planned on visiting the Ruan family. However, upon arriving at the house, volunteers learned that the two kids had quit school and left Jiangkou to move to Guangzhou, which is considered a major city in China. Since the kids were doing poorly in school and the family needed more money, they decided to find a job there to work instead. The prospect of finding a good job opportunity for the kids caused the family to lose faith in the importance of receiving an education — this belief has not only impacted the Ruan family but many others across rural China.
These are just some of the stories of the families we visited this time in Guangxi. By sharing their stories with you, we hope that you can continue to donate to our foundation and help all of the kids that we strive to continue supporting. We are also making arrangements to visit these families for our international trip next summer.
