Down at the Big Bamboo bar, money spent by the crowd watching games in the Rugby World Cup will ultimately benefit the poor people of China's northwest through projects initiated by an American expat and run by the British Chamber of Commerce.

 

The whole world is in a rugby frenzy now that the 2007 World Cup has kicked off.

 

However, rather than taking the usual route and sitting back to watch the games in bars around town, Shanghai expats are taking advantage of the tournament to raise money to help ethnic minorities in China's northwest.

 

With the help of the British Chamber of Commerce, the Big Bamboo bar is donating a percentage of its proceeds during the football season to the charity projects in the Qinghai region that will benefit some of China's poorest people.

 

"There are large amounts of goodwill and financial help for causes in Shanghai, but in places like Qinghai there is not so much. A little help here can go a long way," says Sue Bishop, a member of the British Chamber of Commerce and the driving force behind the raising of funds for the Qinghai Charity Project in Shanghai.

 

"Our charity committee has a focus on local charities, but it also looks to support non-local ones. This is important because it is hard for us here to imagine the extent of the poverty in some rural areas. Obviously there are pockets of poverty in the city but compared with some of the very isolated villages, people here are well-off," Bishop says.

 

The Qinghai projects were started by Kevin Stuart, an American who has been living and working in Qinghai for 20 years. As a teacher at Qinghai Normal University, he works with students from rural ethnic areas in the provinces bordering Tibet. They have organized micro-poverty alleviation projects - the students identify the projects and Stuart raises the capital.

 

"Kevin has been doing these projects for 15 years," Bishop says. "I first learned about him when he applied for funds when I was working in the British Embassy in Beijing in the 1990s. Since I returned to Shanghai in 2003, we have funded water and cultural projects and we make a twice-a-year collection of clothes and toys to be distributed in the neediest regions."

 

The areas that the projects take place are mainly where Stuart's students come from and where Tibetan minorities still live. The tasks the Qinghai Project undertakes fall into two categories - improving the quality of life and cultural preservation.

 

The funds are spent on supplying vital equipment to ease daily workloads, like aluminum milk churns rather than the traditional ones, building bridges and providing schools with basic necessities.

 

One such venture aptly named the "Running Water Project" supplied water directly into villages where previously women had to walk long distances for their daily water needs.

 

"That project, through the help of an engineer, brought water from higher ground," Bishop says. "Trenches were dug and pipes laid to bring the water directly to village households. The water is cleaner and the women now have more time for other things, including time to grow vital vegetables and crops, contributing to their annual income.

 

"Since local people helped to build it, they developed important skills, so if anything went wrong there would be people in the region who could help," she adds.

 

Other funds go to areas where modernization is threatening the place's cultural heritage.

 

"There is one project called 'Tibetan Endangered Music Project' where students go to the villages and record old people singing various types of songs," Bishop says.

 

In fact, when the Lord Mayor of London visited Shanghai last year, his wife donated money to buy computers so the songs could be digitized with the aim that the music could be catalogued and made available online.

 

Having visited the Qinghai area twice herself - once in 1997 and again last November - Bishop says initially she went to see a part of China she had never seen before.

 

Bishop first came to China in 1980 as a student and has lived between Beijing and Shanghai for nine years out of the past 27. "I was curious to visit an ethnic minority area. The first time I went, I was surprised at how remote and poor it was. The villages we visited were long distances apart requiring a four- to six-hour car journey and then parking and walking to the village. There was very little transport or proper roads."

 

Bishop's first visit was in summer. "I remember it being very beautiful, lush and vibrant. However, my second trip was during the winter and it was very different. Cold and barren."

 

The British Chamber of Commerce wanted to find a venue to base their charity drives for Qinghai during the Rugby World Cup and that is where the Big Bamboo stepped in.

 

"You know filling people full of booze is not the most noblest of professions, so we always like to find ways to give a bit back to society," says Bryce Jenner, Big Bamboo's proprietor.

 

Charities are an ideal way to do that, he says. "I was thrilled when I heard it was helping people in Qinghai. I will travel there soon with my former manager and little brother."

 

Big Bamboo is going to raise money several ways over the Rugby World Cup period.

 

"We are donating a percentage of the proceeds taken during the Rugby World Cup period. Secondly, BritCham has a charity box set up in the entrance to the bar and the third way is with AGS Four Winds International Movers (who drive the boxes of collected clothes and toys to the needy areas on a five-day drive).

 

"AGS is producing a few thousand 'beer coolies' with the charity name on them. We will 'give away' the coolies in return for at least a 10-yuan (US$1.33) donation to the box," Jenner says. 

 

All in all, the British Chamber of Commerce and the Big Bamboo are hoping to top 100,000 yuan in donations by the time the Rugby World Cup finals are played.

 

Besides donating much-needed money, Shanghai expats can also help by donating toys and clothing that they no longer need.

 

"The money and these items will go a long way to making the people of Qinghai, particularly the kids, have a much happier existence," says Jenner.

  

For more information about the Qinghai projects, e-mail Sue Bishop at onlaopengyou2003@gmail.com

 

(Shanghai Daily September 20, 2007)