Letter 1 - 17 January 2002

Dear All
As a consequence of the report published in Libération, there are now about twenty of you, based in France, Belgium and Britain, who have shown your willingness to help Ma Yan to continue her school education. Although the individual contributions made are modest, you can imagine that the sum total still represents a lot of money in a province as poor as Ningxia.
But as I told you in my previous message - and there is a paradox in this - sudden influx of money may actually destabilise a community like this, and end up doing more harm than good. This would especially be the case if just one child were to benefit from an extraordinary bounty, while all the others remained plunged in obscurity and misery. Therefore, let me put the following suggestions to you. They are obviously subject to changes and to your feedback, to which I am looking forward.
OUR AIM : Our idea is that we will create a fund, for the main purpose - of course - of helping Ma Yan, whose personal initiative started our movement of solidarity. We want to help her to take her education as far as possible. But it seems quite clear to us (‘us’ meaning my assistant He Yanping, who was also moved by this young girl’s story and by her personality, and who is determined to help her so she can continue her studies) that if we helped only Ma Yan, we would risk generating envy in her environment, which could turn against her.
Moreover, the donations that have been offered mean that even when she is assured of regular and long-term help, there will still be enough left to let some other young girls also go back to school, and break out of the vicious circle in which they are now entrapped in. The alternative to creating a fund of the kind I propose would be that every one of you sent Ma Yan a donation. This would have the advantage of simplicity, but carry the risk of throwing this village, already in crisis, completely out of balance.
OUR METHOD : There is no thought here of creating yet another NGO. But there is also no reliable organisation already in existence and operating in Ningxia, which could be entrusted with this project. Therefore, we have to work out a mechanism that runs as smoothly as possible and at the same time allows us to be transparent and efficient. Efficient, because we want every penny to reach its intended destination ; and transparent, because everyone amongst us has a right to ascertain that their donation is used in a proper way.
As for helping Ma Yan herself, this is not too complicated. We have already sent a first sum of money to her by postal order, to cover the current school term, and we know that she has received the money. We have asked her to write to us regularly, so we keep informed about the progress of her studies, and she is doing this. Her letters will be translated, and they shall be passed on to you in due course. We are perfectly able to continue with this commitment and to fix a certain monthly sum to be paid out to her as a bursary, which will allow her to pay her school fees as well as to improve her living conditions and thus allow her to study better.
The easiest way would doubtless be to open a bank account for Ma Yan in France, which would allow us to pool the donations, and then make transfers of larger sums of money from this account : this will minimise bank charges and help to avoid errors or mistakes upon arrival of the money.
It is more complicated to work out how to help other girls deprived of school education with further bursaries, if our funds permit it. How to select them ? How to get the bursaries paid out to them ? And how to follow up on further developments ? The easiest would be, it seems, to go through the Education Bureau which the article mentioned. This Bureau has all the files on local families who are in difficulties and unable to pay their children’s school fees. Then the required fees could be paid directly to the respective school, in such and such a child’s name, so as to avoid the payment of intermediaries. In this case, just as in Ma Yan’s, the children would be required to write regularly to let us know how they were doing. And it would also be necessary actually to go there at regular intervals, once a term perhaps, to make sure that all was well...
The photographer Wang Zheng, who was our guide when we first came to Ningxia last spring, and who is himself from the ‘triangle of thirst’ in the south of the province, though he now lives in the provincial capital Yinchuan, has agreed to help us with this project. He would be an indispensable contact in the province.
Together with him, my assistant and I myself would be at the heart of the project, establishing and maintaining contact between you and Ma Yan as well as other future beneficiaries of the project, and following up on the developments in the village to ensure that the entire mechanism was working properly.
It might be a good idea to enlist the help of a representative from a humanitarian organisation such as MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) or the Save the Children Fund, or, as one of you suggested, the Alliance Française, which also has an educational mission, on this project. Such a person could help us to avoid mistakes and ensure the transparency of our project which, modest as it is, does involve some financial transactions.
Sorry to have written such a long letter, but I think it is better to tackle all the questions that will inevitably arise, before we actually start. I am looking forward to having your views : Do you agree to set up a fund as suggested, or would you prefer to address yourselves directly to Ma Yan ? Do you agree on the proposal to help other young girls, once Ma Yan’s own needs are taken care of ? Do you agree on the mechanism I have suggested ?
Cordially
Pierre Haski

Beijing, 17 January 2002

 

 

 

Letter 3 - 29 January 2002

Hello,

Thanks for all your messages and for the concrete commitments you have made in them. The sums you have promised will allow us to do, without further hesitation, what we have been talking about for two weeks now : to help Ma Yan to realise her dream of education by concrete measures, and to help a few more children to find their way back to school education - for their own sakes, but perhaps also to avoid jealousies and rancours arising around Ma Yan about this money so suddenly come from outside.
The opening of a bank account for collecting your donations has not been so easy, given that we are not a [charitable] association in the legal sense (the future will show if it becomes necessary to create one), but I have been able to open a bank account under a special name with my BNP bank branch.
My idea is that we should try and send her a first sum by postal order before the Chinese New Year on 12 February - the principal holiday in China, like our New Year and Christmas together. I will then travel there in person, together with my assistant, toward the end of February (it is impossible to go any earlier, partly because of the holidays, and even more compellingly for work reasons - Bush will be in Beijing on 21 and 22 February...). Once there, we will be able to determine how much money Ma Yan really needs, and ascertain if it is possible to set up some modest scheme for bursaries to be granted to some children in her district, with the help of contact persons there.
I will report to you about each step I take in this process, and I will also keep regular account of the sums collected and the use to which they have been put. I will also pass on to you letters from Ma Yan - which we will be asking for, to keep track of her progress in school and her life in general. And I’ll give you an ‘exclusive’ report about my trip to the village, pictures included by email attachment...
I hope that this action plan will be approved by you, and that you find it true to the spirit of our common effort. Please do not hesitate to make comments or suggestions. I have already received some in your previous letters, especially some information on organisations sponsoring children - though alas, none of these has a presence in this entirely forgotten region.
With best wishes
Pierre Haski

P.S. Some more people have joined us since this correspondence began.

 

 

 

 

Letter 5 - 26 February 2002

Hello,
Some news ! On Monday we received a letter from Ma Yan. She has received our first payment, and she thanks all those who decided to help her. This is her letter :
« Dear Uncles and Aunts :
How are you ? [in English, though the rest of her letter is in Chinese]. I received your letter on 17 February 2002. That day my father had gone to town for the market and he found the letter at the post office. He opened it right away, but there were a few characters he couldn’t recognise. Back at home he asked me to read it. When I had finished the reading, I don’t know why, but I broke out in a sweat, as if all my strength had gone...Maybe it was because I was just too moved, too, too happy.
Father said, when he had finished reading the letter, that he no longer knew if he was walking on earth or in the sky, because he felt as if his body was floating. Mother added, ‘Finally, the heavens have opened their eyes. I didn’t cry for no reason while I was up in the mountains. My tears, then, were the result of pain and sadness. Now, they come from joy. I wish you a very good year and convey all my gratitude.’
After reading your letter, I really understood what joy means, and what friendship and the meaning of life are in this world. I thank all the people who have set out to help me. I am thrilled that young French people want to be my friends. I would like to write to them, phone them immediately, but I have neither their address nor phone numbers. Then, too, they don’t speak Chinese. I hope that you’ll give them my address : I would like to be their friend, their best friend. I say ‘Thank You’ [in English] to all of them.
You said that you could help other children from families in need. I’m so very, very pleased at that. For me, my problems are now behind me. Let them, too, complete their schooling and fulfill their dreams. All my thanks.
Soon I’m going back to school. I shall work very hard not to disappoint all your expectations. (The money you sent me has safely arrived.)
I wish you great success in this year of the horse.
Ma Yan, 19 February 2002 »

And moreover, my report on Ma Yan was published in the Italian magazine « Internazionale », and I have already received four emails from Italians who also want to show solidarity with Ma Yan and children of her village who can’t go to school. Two more French people have also written to me wanting to become part of our initiative. As I told you, I will make a trip to the village shortly - from 8 to 12 March - to make support available to more children in the village, and I will inform you about this when I am back.
Finally, a Parisian publisher has contacted me, who would like to publish the entire diary and my accompanying report. We are still in discussions about this, but if it works out, then it would doubtless give Ma Yan’s family a real chance to escape from their present misery forever.
So, we have had some good news. But even so, we are still at the beginning...
Best wishes
Pierre Haski

Beijing, feb. 26, 2002