Focus

Clearing away ruins for quake orphans

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-30 07:49

Gyashul Adrou stands among the debris of his orphanage after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Qinghai province in this file photo from April 25. After a year of reconstruction efforts, he will return to the town with 54 children. Huo Yan / China Daily

Gyashul Adrou escaped from his crumbling orphanage with 22 children when a 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Qinghai province last April. Next year, he will return with 54.

"I hope our new home will be bigger and stronger," said the 24-year-old, who has run the orphanage in the Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture since 2006 with his brother, Kagyu Mulan, 27.

More than 2,600 people were killed in the natural disaster, including 46-year-old volunteer Wong Fuk Wing, who died saving three children trapped in the ruins.

As word of the heroic deed quickly spread, individuals, companies and organizations rushed to comfort the orphans and offered cash donations.

However, eight months later, hardly any of the promises have been kept. "We need money and urgently," said Gyashul Adrou, whose priorities including rebuilding the orphanage in Gyegu town and supporting seven children through vocational education.

For the past five years, the orphanage, which costs 130,000 yuan ($20,000) a year to run, has largely depended on money from Kagyu Mulan's private medical clinic and a factory that produces Tibetan incense.

However, when it reopens the care home will accommodate more children, including those orphaned by the earthquake.

All 54 children have moved from tents to an orphanage in the southeastern Huangnan Tibetan autonomous prefecture, where they also attend school.

At the beginning, some of them were hesitant about going indoors. Therapists from cities arrived to give them counseling and encouraged them to retell the painful experiences to help ease the stress. However, due to culture differences, the technique did not yield much success.

Instead, they tried traditional Tibetan nomad games, which worked at relieving the trauma.

The children still feel insecure but they are getting better, said Gyashul Adrou, who explained: "For some of them, sight of a crack on the wall is still enough to make them want to live in a tent."

Others are eager to go back to Gyegu, the place where they were born and raised, but others are dreading it "because it is the place they lost their family", he said.

According to reconstruction plans for the town, the new four-story orphanage will be completed in 2011. "I hope we'll be back before next winter," added Gyashul Adrou.

Cao Li

To read the original story, visit: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2010-04/30/content_9794995.htm