Society

Media sees results of charity shortfall

By Zhou Wenting (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-11-17 18:34

Representatives of a media charity group reported on their journey to Henan and Anhui provinces at a charity event in Beijing on Tuesday.

In October, seven reporters from the Charitarian maga-zine and New Charity maga-zine participated in the trip, which was co-sponsored by the Charitarian and the Henan Charity Federation's Zhou Sen Charity Fund.

The group visited five char-ity primary schools and two seniors' homes which were built from donations given by Zhou Sen, chairman of China Three Gorges Imperial Art Academy. The reporters inspected the condition of the schools and seniors' homes after several years of dona-tions.

The reporters found several problems, including damage to school buildings, lack of desks, chairs, computers and other hardware, and teaching staff shortages. They attributed the situa-tion to the lack of follow-up donations. The original dona-tions solved pressing prob-lems at the schools, but sec-ondary problems that were not addressed at first worsened over time.

The absence of feedback and tracking resulted in un-sustained improvement, which reflected the current state of philanthropy in China.

This was the first return visit by the media to these charity schools and was made to raise public awareness of the need to provide follow-up charity support rather than merely relying on the first donation.