Between City and Village | Alice KWAN

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[ ‘SHARE’ Mar-Apr 2013 – Between City and Village ]　FOCUS: SPECIAL TOPIC

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Does city life meet migrant workers’ expectations?

Author> Alice KWAN　Education and Promotion Officer

‘Running to’ the cities

Each Lunar New Year we hear news and see images of migrant workers in China cramming into public transport to get home to their families. This has been going on for nearly thirty years and this annual travelling back and forth is continuing. For the first time in 2011, China’s 690 million city dwellers outnumbered the rural ones, accounting for 51.27% of the country’s total population. [1]

Why do rural people flock to work in the cities?

40-year-old Mr. Liu, a deliveryman in Yunnan, says, ‘I came to the city for a better life; conditions here are better than the village’s.’

23-year-old Jin works in a convenience store in Kunming, ‘Home is a small place and prospect was not good… I live here each day as it comes… I want to see more and experience things while I am still young…’

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Like other migrant workers, 40-year-old Mr. Liu, a deliveryman in Yunnan, seeks work in the city for many reasons, such as having a poor family, hardship in farming, backward rural economy and a desire to see the world.

Travelling in cities and villages

After graduating in late 1990s, I researched on labour studies in China. I waited outside factories in the Guangdong Province catching migrant workers coming out for lunch breaks to talk about their work and life there. They told me how they were forced to work long hours but wages were held up or often deducted by trickery, or how labourers injured at work were neglected and ignored. Questions came to my mind ‘Why did you come here? Wasn’t it a better life in the village? At least you would not be taken advantage of!’

After joining CEDAR in 2000, I went to Hubei, China, and visited different project sites; then I lived for a few years in a Gansu village working on a development project. As I got to know the people, I gained a better understanding of the tension they faced between village and city lives.

Once a villager pointed out to some newly repaired brick houses and told me that they were financed by migrant family members who earned money in the cities. As my informant lives in a ramshackle wooden shack; he looked both jealous and envious.

Village life has become even less secure in recent years because of uncertainties of climate change. When farmers sow seeds in springtime they cannot be sure if there would be much harvest in the autumn. Young people have all left the village and the remaining adolescents wish they will soon look old enough so that they, too, can leave and travel far.

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Travel between cities and villages helped me see the tension villagers face.

‘Staying behind’ in the villages

So is there nothing in the villages to keep the people there? There is such a great urge in them to leave!

Not necessarily. I chatted with a young mother who came home for Lunar New Year. Soon she was in tears because her two-year-old did not recognise her and clung to the grandparents only. She could not believe that while she had left home to improve the family’s situation, she would in the end lose her family. There are those villagers who have tried by all means over a long time but still failed to recover hard-earned wages owed to them.

As a development worker, I always hope that whether the villagers have decided to stay or leave, CEDAR’s rural community development projects will give them timely help and more room for choice. I believe that urbanisation is not the only way for development and parents need not leave their children behind to go and work elsewhere. Even in villages people can explore possible development plans through projects such as husbandry breeding, organic farming, making fair trade handicrafts and setting up farmers’ cooperatives.

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In winter women earn money making fair trade handicrafts.

It has been over 30 years since China’s reforms and opening up, and the first generation of migrant workers are now middle-aged; many of them have chosen to return home because of their age, family, and the government’s new rural policy.

49-year-old Gansu villager Zhang Zi-sheng says, ‘I worked in the city for over twenty years and I am now back home to devote myself to developing breeding and farming.’

48-year-old Hu Yun-jie from Hubei says, ‘I had been to many places and in the end I feel that home is the best place for my future; I can both look after my family and develop my village, here I can fulfil my parental responsibility of raising my children. Now that the Chinese government has quite a good rural policy and there is prospect for rural development; I am very hopeful for the future.’

35-year-old Tan Feng says, ‘I had gone away to work before, but I have decided to come back because my parents are getting old but my child is still young and needs looking after.’

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Zhang Zi-sheng, a returnee, wants to restart farming.

‘Watching over’ migrant workers

As there is still a difference in the wages and development prospects between cities and villages, despite the hardships involved many are still migrating to cities.

30-year-old Ms. Li, now a waitress, followed her husband from Hubei to the city. ‘I left home for the sake of my children and family… I made the decision but I do not like it… I am not happy, there is no freedom working here, I don’t have my dreams and I have to listen to people’s orders.’

35-year-old Mr. Liu works in a supermarket in Kunming, Yunnan, ‘I had little choice but to work here. If something happens I will be left with nothing and no protection.’

As a socialist country, China’s labour regulations are very comprehensive but enforcement is slack. Apart from exploitation and unfair treatment, China’s household registration system also makes migrant workers second-class citizens, which means that regardless of how much they have contributed to the cities they are not eligible for medical treatment or children’s education benefits. Many migrant workers cannot adjust to the urban lifestyle, often homesick, and missing family. It is difficult for them to enjoy living in the city in cramped conditions.

Alone and away from home, it is very important that fellow villagers can support and watch out for each other when challenges, difficulties and disappointments arise. Currently CEDAR is actively promoting migrant workers projects, providing pre-departure training, teaching them labour rights based on past cases to raise their civic awareness. CEDAR also plans to set up networks so that migrant workers from the same or a neighbouring village support and help each other.

Today I do not get to walk around industrial sites or visit villages often, but I still bless those who travel between city and village. There are numerous possibilities between the two and I hope that they actually have the freedom to choose, and have a fair share of the fruits of development. I hope their lives will be happy and enriched, whether they be in the city or village.

For Further Action

If you care about migrant workers in China, you can:

Special thanks to CEDAR’s staff stationed in Hubei, Yunnan and Gansu for their help with the interviews.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9020486/Chinas-urban-population-exceeds-rural-for-first-time-ever.html

Organic Farming Movement Can Promote Food Security

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[ePrayer – Pray for Organic Farming Movement]

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The modern organic farming movement emerged in the 1950s and 1960s largely as a reaction to consumer concerns about the rising use of agrochemicals. Producing food sustainably will be extremely important as the global population continues to grow and as climate change affects land quality worldwide. Organic farming has the potential to contribute to food security, boost farmer incomes, enhance biodiversity and reduce ecosystems’ vulnerability to climate change. But it is important too that organic farming form part of a larger, more sustainable global food system – where low-income consumers can access and afford fresh, nutritious foods. [IPS]

Pray for Organic Farming Movement:

  • Pray that more low income consumers can be benefit from reducing the production cost of organic food.
  • Pray that more farmers realize the importance and advantages of organic farming. They can be well-supported and if the production method converts to organic farming from traditional farming.

Ethiopia Ministry Highlight

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[Annual Report 2011-2012] Focus Countries

ethiopia

Review of 2011 to 2012

In the second half of 2011, south-east part of Ethiopia was hit by the most serious drought and famine in 60 years as the country experienced the impact of climate change. The victims lost their livestock and crops. 3.5 million people were affected. In partnership with local Christian groups, CEDAR’s partner Tearfund UK provided emergency relief in Borena zone.

15,000 people were benefited from the drought relief

In our children ministry we emphasise our walk with sponsored children and their parents in an equal relationship(relationship or partnership?). We are delighted by our partner Addis Ababa Guenet Church (AAGC)’s new approach. On top of providing basic needs to impoverished children, AAGC is now helping the parents to form self-help savings groups. Some of the groups have achieved good saving target. The parents are very exciting with the accumulated saving records and have gained hope on the future.

7 parents self-help savings groups were formed in 2011

Prospect in the Coming Year

In the coming ministry year, CEDAR will focus on responding to the need of impoverished children families and the challenge of climate change. Partner AAGC will start business training and micro-credit loans among parents saving groups to lend money to different group members at low-interest rate for developing their livelihoods, with the hope that at the end parents can meet the needs of the children.

For the climate change, CEDAR supports partner Tearfund UK to start a post-disaster rehabilitation project in Borena zone, including provision of livestock, training on cultivating the high-productive agricultural products, set up of water system, organisation of self-help groups and farmers’ cooperative for sales and marketing, to help local impoverished families to recover from the drought and enhance their ability on fighting against the impact of drought and climate change.

7,000 people will be benefited from the drought rehabilitation 

Tracy’s Sharing

‘I thought that the Ethiopian are very nice and full of life-force. Although their livings are very desperate, they always encourage, support and help each other. For example, the drought victims will share their food aids freely with other victims, and the saving group members will try to help each other if any one of them cannot pay the deposit of that month. They do not want to be aid receivers only, but wish that they themselves can be self-reliant and get involved to improve and develop the livelihoods of their communities as well. What they need is the opportunity to develop their potentials.’

 

After the exposure monitoring trips and discussions in the past two years, according to a series of measurement, such as the human development index (HDI), Gini coefficient, political and social stability, uniqueness and the possibility of monitoring project, we have finally chosen Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, India, Nepal, Myanmar and China to be the focus countries for our projects.

Update of Quake Relief in Yiliang, Yunnan

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The residents in Yiliang are poor. Many elderly villagers were moved to tears as they hold the food aid in their hands.

(For more photos, please click here)

Over a month after the quake happened in Yiliang, Yunnan in early September, where 700 thousand people were affected, many quake victims are still staying under rough shelters and even some of them have yet to receive any relief assistance. CEDAR has received the grant of 2.4 million from the HKSAR’s Disaster Relief Fund to support the quake affected victims. On 25 October, CEDAR team and Yunnan Christian Council sent a relief team to Yiliang, Zhaotong region to deliver the one-month food aid to 6,000 quake affected households in 15 villages.

CEDAR staff Alice, who has been helping facilitate the quake relief work, said, ‘Lots of houses have collapsed after the quake and the villagers are still staying under rough shelters. The blankets they received from emergency relief are soaked with rainwater. The victims are now facing the challenge of cold weather.’

In the first week of the relief operation, staff and volunteers finished 40% of the food aid distribution. This is the first time volunteers from Yiliang Church take part in relief operation. However, after the briefing and practice on the first day, they have been familiarised with the operation. In the third day, our relief team was even able to deliver food packages to 300 more households within less than three hours work. Praise the Lord!

Local staff and volunteers are now delivering the rest of the relief materials to other quake affected villages. The relief operation will be finished in early November. We are glad to see that not only have the needs of the quake victims have been matched, but also the capability of the Yiliang Church in responding to disaster has also been built up.

‘The residents in Yiliang are poor’ Fountain, a programme officer from CEDAR who has taken part in the quake relief work, shared, ‘many elderly villagers were moved to tears as they hold the food aid in their hands.’ Most of the people there are lived by farming. However, in recent years, the livelihood of villagers has become more and more difficult by the climate change. ‘They are used to growing grape, tangerine and Sichuan pepper. However, the fruits in recent years have rotten before they have time to ripen.’ Landslides caused by the quake and the loosen soil caused by rainwater have worsened the condition of the damaged houses, making them more susceptible to collapse. The only school in the village has been closed till next April.

‘Last Sunday, we passed through the most affected region. Seeing with my own eyes the quake-shattered cement plant, the boulders and remnant of landslides left on the road and the scene after serious landslides, I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been when the quake hit.’ said Alice. ‘It has happened over a month since the Yiliang quake, but there are still some victims staying in tents far away from the road with very little assistance. If we were in their shoes, I am sure we would agree that they definitely need our continual care and support.’

Fountain said, ‘Most of the Miao people there belong to the Hua Miao group. Christianity has had deep impact on their culture and way of life 100 years ago. I really hope that through the participation of local churches, China’s government could have more concern on the special need of Miao minority in the after quake rehabilitation.’

Pray for the quake relief and rehabilitation in Yiliang, Yunnan:

  • Pray that the quake victims will have sufficient relief materials for facing the challenge of cold weather;
  • Pray that local government will confirm the plan of rehabilitation shortly and the resettlement of quake victims will be efficiently implemented and finished;
  • Pray that God will give strength to the staff and volunteers from the Yunnan churches to finished the rest of the food aid delivery;
  • Please remember the next phase of rehabilitation work. Pray that we can collect more donations to support the long-term post-disaster recovery and development in Yiliang, Yunnan.

Act now to support the quake-affected people through financial assistance:

  • By cheque: Please make cheque payable to ‘CEDAR FUND’ and mark ‘Yunnan Earthquake Relief’ on your cheque, and then have it sent to G.P.O. Box 3212 Hong Kong.
  • By ATM:  Please make deposit directly into our bank account for emergency relief (HSBC 600-385678-003). Please mark ‘Yunnan Earthquake Relief’ on your pay-in-slip, and then have it sent to G.P.O. Box 3212Hong Kong.
  • Online Payment: You can also transfer your donations to our HSBC account for emergency relief through online banking services. For online banking transfers, please send the online transfer confirmation to sharing@cedarfund.org with the subject ‘Yunnan Earthquake Relief’.
  • Download donation form

For enquiry: 

Please contact our staff Alice Kwan and Jojo Poon at 2381 9627.

Ethiopia Tearfund Drought Rehabilitation and Community Development Project

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The “Horn of Africa” which refers to the Eastern part of the Continent has been seriously affected by climate change in recent years. Drought often occurs and the local people who rely heavily on pasturing and farming have suffered a lot. In the Borena zone,Southern Ethiopia, most families are pastoralists and they were made poor and vulnerable by the recurrent drought. They did not have enough food for themselves and there is not enough pasturing grass for their livestock. As a result, livestock becomes weak or die. For many years pastoralists do not have the ability to prepare and store food in order to survive through future droughts, making daily lives very difficult.

CEDAR has supported Tearfund a drought relief project in Oct – Dec 2011 in the Borena zone of Ethiopia. Following that, in partnership we provide assistance to 7,000 poor and vulnerable households in the area of rehabilitation with project interventions focus on improving local’s livelihoods such as restocking of livestock, income diversification through introduction and promotion of high yielding agricultural inputs, construction of water schemes for human and livestock consumption, promoting saving and credit culture through organizing Self-Help Groups. Formation and strengthening of Cooperatives with the primary aim to promote trading & marketing of livestock as well as to explore alternative income sources. Moreover, awareness raising on the right knowledge of HIV/AIDS will be dealt in the project.  This can help the people in Borena zone to recover from the negative impact of drought as well as to enhance their ability to fight against drought or climate change in the future.

Bangladesh World Concern Disaster Risk Reduction Project

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Bangladesh is geographically located in a disaster prone area. Natural disasters are common phenomenon and occur in a regular basis. The present threat of climate change and global warming is a red alert of the country. The frequency and intensity of many existing hazards is increasing while some of new hazards may take place. CEDAR sponsors World Concern to reduce the impact of natural disasters by enhancing life security and building capacity of the vulnerable people through training and skill development.

Besides providing disaster mitigation training to the villagers and stakeholders, the project would also raise the villagers’ awareness on protection of environment. Participants would be trained about direct and indirect impact of climate change. They would also be taught about ways to reduce impact of disasters which would restore the environment simultaneously, e.g. construction of embankment and shelter, tree plantation, maintenance of water system and water sources.