by Wu An An and Li Xue
On December 26th 2008, at a restaurant near the Amity office, four university students and Amity staff were gathering for a reunion. The students were special guests of Amity – “children” from the polio project. Tan Lei, a second year medical student at Nanjing Chinese Medical University, was telling [...]
Issue: ‘Health Matters: 88/1, 2009’
Amity’s Polio Project: Brand New Hope for the Disabled
Clinics in Gansu: How to Stay on as a Village Doctor
by Beate Engelen
Becoming a village doctor had never been one of Chang Xi’s childhood dreams. There was no calling and no aging parent to urge him. “I did it,” he explained, “because I didn’t want to be farming all my life or become a migrant worker.” Chang Xi, a young ambitious man in his early [...]
Trip to Guizhou: What an Experience in Majiang!
Stephen Codrington, principal of Li Po Chun United World College in Hong Kong, accompanied Amity staff to one of the poorest provinces of China: Guizhou. Here, people are in desperate need of better healthcare. The trip took place immediately after the 2008 snowstorm disaster. His experiences led Mr. Codrington to involve his school in fundraising [...]
Basic Healthcare: 100 Rural Clinics for Guizhou
by Anthony Tong
Most people in the countryside of Guizhou Province have only one choice when they need to see a doctor: visit a small village clinic run by a rural health worker. These health workers often live in the same rooms where they deliver their services. They provide check-ups and treatment of patients on the [...]
Women’s Health: Free Check-Ups
Women’s health in rural China typically focuses on pregnancy and birth control. Except for reproductive-health reasons, women go to see a doctor only when they get seriously ill – not earlier.
That health checkups for women can prevent diseases is widely unknown in today’s rural China. Now, time has come for preventive healthcare to be introduced [...]
Biofuel: Poverty alleviation turns green
Farmers in Yunnan are about to start cultivation of Jatropha on low-quality soils as part of a new Amity project.
Jatropha is a hardy plant which grows on sandy grounds and even saline soils. Because it thrives under inhospitable circumstances, it does not compete with edible crops for soil and water. Crushed, the seeds eventually yield [...]