Conference in the North

Hello all!

As discussed in my last post, this past weekend I attended a conference bringing together gressroots organizations working on this issue from all over the country. I think the set up of it was so fantastic, such a wonderful idea for capacity building, that I had to share how it was set up.

This one Chinese NGO received a grant from an international org to fund grassroots orgs’ projects working to solve specific issues. The man leading the Chinese NGO solicited applications from grassroots orgs, he received 60 applications and project proposals which was then whittled down to 24 groups invited to attend the conference. Each org then got five minutes to present their proposal to a group of five specialists in the field and in fundraising. This was followed by a 15 minute question and answer period from the judges and audience, after which the judge’s gave a score and explained why they gave that score and how the organization could improve in the future. In the end, the top 6 orgs got full funding and another 4 (rounding out the top ten) got partial funding.

I thought this was such a cool way to distribute funds. Orgs then understood why they did or did not improve the funding, got positive feedback, could meet and connect with other orgs working on similar issues and really feel a part of the process (I just wish they let the audience vote and average that vote into the judges!) I especially loved this as I enter the fellowship rounds of law school and know I’ll get rejected from some (hopefully not all!) and also know I will receive virtually no feedback as to why (ah, the joys of law school).

The conference itself was great, I made a lot of contacts and it looks like I’ll be traveling more than expected this summer, also a good thing even if I couldn’t make myself sleep in the swank soft sleeper train Josh and I took back from Harbin to Beijing!

Also, Harbin = much cooler than expected. We were there over the dragon boat festival and on Saturday night the streets were flooded, FLOODED, with people. I have never seen so many people in my entire life! Literally every square inch was filled with bobbing black-haired heads, waves and waves of people. Along the way people were selling light up devil hairbands and twirling florescent glow sticks, blow up hammers and “I heart China” T-shirts. They were all headed to stairs leading down to the river, where paper lanterns were lit with fire as they floated up and into the sky. It was a gorgeous, unexpected evening. I now have a bracelet on my wrist I was told I cannot remove until it rains to remember it by…until it rains….

The next night, before boarding the train, we spent our time visiting the Russian (yes Russian, Harbin is only 4 hours away from the country) cathedral in Harbin. The city was full of lights, sort of how I would imagine Las Vegas to be, perhaps to a slightly smaller degree, and it was uncanny seeing Chinese people playing badminton in a large European-ish square, backdropped by this Russian church!

All in all, a successful, lovely weekend!