With the changing environment occurring in China today, there is a necessity to boost efforts to ensure that disaster relief would be attained by the people. A new disaster relief committee was established under the China Charity Alliance on Monday in Beijing with 53 members participating in the alliance.
The establishment of the committee will work on guiding, supporting and reorganizing charitable organizations and enterprises in order for them to participate in disaster relief efforts effectively and rationally.
It is also responsible for the establishment of a mechanism that would organize normalized social forces to prevent, mitigate and prepare for disasters, as well as building the message communication platform regarding charitable disaster relief. It also devotes time to propagate the knowledge of disaster prevention and mitigation, as well as provide skill training programs.
Qiu Zhonghui, the secretary of Amity Foundation, has been elected as the director of this new committee.
The Amity Foundation, founded in 1985, is the first official Chinese Christian organization since the end of the Cultural Revolution. It aims to promote education, social service, health, community development and civil society building from China's coastal provinces in the east to the minority sects in the west. It has cooperated with over 20 countries and 300 institutions. It has also invested more than 2 billion yuan in 31 provinces, cities and municipality in China.
Having responded to the 1987 Daxing'anling wildfire, Amity has joined in the rescue efforts in one to three major natural disasters each year, gaining rich experience on how they can improve their home and overseas disaster relief efforts.
