Post-Quake Musical Relief in Sichuan China

An 8-magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale hit Sichuan province in southwest China on May 12th, 2008. Over the last one and half years, there have existed some people, who voluntarily teamed up to help victims and survivors in Sichuan reviving from quack devastation. Consisting of international full-time staff and volunteers, Sichuan Quake Relief (SQR) is a non-profit, non-partisan, non-religious humanitarian organization registered in Hong Kong, “dedicated to improving the lives of those affected by the Sichuan earthquake”. Team members who then established SQR started coordination work of emergency aid instantly right in the next morning to the quake. 1.5 years after the catastrophe, SQR’s initiatives have gradually transited into a series of long-term relief and development projects. “Internet and multi-media has been one of our major communication tools in daily operation,” said Li Yuanyuan, the Outreach Coordinator of SQR.

About 6 months ago, I met their people in a regular social event, Beijing Green Drink, on which an EP album”AFTERQUAKE”, produced by American folk artist Abigail Washburn and electronic artist The Shanghai Restoration Project, was released in the name of SQR at the one-year anniversary of the Sichuan Earthquake. Dedicated to the families fallen apart by the quake, the artists collected and remixed the voices of the children who were homeless or relocated from their families for school after the quake, with an intent of drawing more public attention on the people in need. Different packages of the album are listed and sold online in iTune Store, one of which is the limited edition with Amanda Kowalski’s print photograph. A major portion of the sales revenue will be assigned to fund SQR’s operations in the relocation schools and quake-hit areas.

Despite its short history, SQR does have a diversified operation team with sophisticated experience in IT deployment. Cooperation with new media professionals for this album strengthened their communication capacity. A great number of schools were devastated in the earthquake; children had to be apart from their families and relocated in some surviving school buildings. SQR volunteers and two artists went to those schools, performing for students and recording their voices and songs. Then they travelled all the way around from Chengdu to the quake-hit zones, brought the demo of “AFTERQUAKE” to the families, the voices of whose children were burned in the CD. People living in those backward villages might have never heard their children’s voices through the remixed music. SQR recorded the precious fragments of their trips and uploaded a series of podcasts on YouTube. It was a successful trial for bringing mental relief to victims and raising public awareness after quake through employment of multi-media agency.

In terms of public relations and fund raising, internet and multi-media has played a critical role for SQR. The official website has both the general profiles of the organization as well as latest updates on projects. The newsletters are released in the form of a home-page blog post on a monthly basis. The Chengdu-based office of SQR is functioned by a condensed full-time team; meanwhile, SQR has a complete online procedure of volunteer recruiting, both for professionals and for event volunteers, providing significant supports to SQR programs. The website lists out important web linkages, establishing a good interacting platform and forum for organizations and individuals who share the mission of quake relief. I re-initiated the connection with SQR through the “contact” tag on their website and got a positive and timely response from its project coordinator, which indicated that their webpage was maintained and updated regularly. As a professional international organization, SQR has a combined team for IT solution with full-time staff and consultants.

However, due to the features of SQR’s missions, their major operations were to coordinate projects in rural areas, either in poverty or heavily stricken by the quake, where IT may not be facilitated to function well yet. “Still, we may liaise with local focal points through email and IM systems if applicable; and we are planning an education program on computer and internet applications in relocated schools.” said Li Yuanyuan. SQR does believe that internet and multi-media will be eventually proliferated to be the major communication agency in the reconstructing period of the quake area and SQR is committed itself to be the key catalyst for this transition. But by far, most of their substantial jobs were done through on site visits and inconvenient commuting. The transportation systems were also severely damaged by the quake and still under reconstruction.

One and half year after the Sichuan earthquake, the overall rebuilding keeps ongoing. The mission of SQR will be further expanded to coordinate for the sustainable development of the regions with less resilience to nature disasters. To achieve this goal, they believe that IT will be employed into a broader and more technical-oriented scale, such as geography information system.

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