| GLI Trustees, Robin Rowland and Jim Baker, have just had a fruitful and inspiring visit to China last month (Sep 23rd to 28th 2007) . This visit was to review GLI's projects and partnerships in China as well as to visit the sites of our Chinese networkers, which now number over 150 from 20 provinces and districts of China as well as overseas Chinese from the UK, USA, Japan, Canada, Singapore and Italy.
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| On the night of 23rd, Jessica Zhang and her colleague from 'Running and Loving' Consulting Company visited Robin, Jim and Fan at our hotel. Chris JI, GLI's new coordinator in Beijing, also joined the meeting. Jessica has just graduated from Beijing University this year. Beijing University launched a 'Campus Incubation Centre' last year that supports students who are interested in starting their own business; 'Running and Loving' was chosen by the managing committee with free office space and facilities for two years.
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| Jessica is also a member of Beijing University Future Social Entrepreneur Association; she attended the GLI-ETIC joint seminar at Beijing University this month and made a very impressive presentation about 'Running and Loving'. |
| The consulting company serves as a bridge between companies, students and communities with needs. For example, their internship programme provides internship opportunities in big companies such as KPMG, Motorola etc. during the summer and winter vocation seasons. Students who apply for internships commit to donate a certain percentage of their salary to children in the rural area of Guizhou province for their education. 'Running and Loving' also provides fundraising advice and plans for grassroots NGOs.
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| On Monday morning the GLI group visited the newly established China Social Entrepreneur Foundation. Launched in April 2007, CSEF is the first private foundation in China to be set up by successful entrepreneurs with wide network involving central government, GONGOs and grassroots organisations.
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| Ms. CHEN Yimei and Mr. CHAI Huan briefed us on their new grant programme and encouraged GLI to apply for its social entrepreneur project in China. Ms. CHEN was the deputy chief of Ford Foundation China for 10 years. She was introduced to GLI by our partner, Ms. Song. According to Ms. Chen, she was 'greatly inspired' at the GLI-ETIC joint seminar in Beijing. Although social entrepreneurs are a new area for her and CSEF, she strongly believes that it should be one of the most important areas for their future initiatives in helping achieve a sustainable 'harmonious society'.
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| Later the GLI group visited Jiuxianqiao community with Mr. MA Zhongliang. Ms. LIU Baozhen, the party secretary of Jiuxianqiao, is a very active member of Beijing social enterprise working group. She greeted us warmly and showed us a short documentary about the 'red cap volunteer group' of Jiuxianqiao. |
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| Jiuxianqiao paper cutting
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| Later, we visited the newly established 'Jiuxianqiao Community and Arts Centre' which was opening the day after our visit. This Centre serves both as an exhibition room and a meeting place for the paper cutting art group and knitting group. Robin and Jim were fascinated by the beautiful paper cut pieces produced by local people. |
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| Jiuxianqiao
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| On Tuesday morning GLI group visited British Council Beijing and had an hour long meeting with Ian Robinson (presently Assistant Director) and Yanni. GLI briefed Ian on our recent progress and some thoughts from the Beijing social enterprise working group's visit to UK last August.
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| On Wednesday the GLI group had two separate meetings with the former and current British Consul-General in Shanghai. Sue Bishop introduced her new role with Global Financial Centre under Nottingham University Ningbo. Through GLI's introduction, she is now talking with GLI networker Steve Koon on jointly launching courses on entrepreneurship in Nottingham China. Sue Bishop's successor as Consul-General, Carma Elliot, was briefed on GLI's Chinese and Global work which she had first heard about when she was previously in China three years earlier. She was interested and very helpful.
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| GLI group visited NPI (Non Profit Incubator) in Pudong on Thursday morning. LV Zhao, executive director of NPI, made a two-hour presentation of NPI and its future plans. NPI is initialized by China NPO Network in Beijing and formally registered in Pudong development district. NPI aims to serve as an incubation centre for innovative grassroots projects. We saw the name of 'Donate Time', 'Xintu Community Empowermen' at the entrance.
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NPI |
| LV said that the long-term version of NPI is to create a social enterprise silicon valley. He hopes that NPI and GLI can collaborate on their future social entrepreneur education project. NPI is keen on using the space of the citizen centre to launch courses on social enterprise next year. The UK visitors were very impressed by NPI's plans and vision and felt that there was good scope for GLI and NPI cooperation.
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| In the afternoon GLI had a most interesting and inspiring visit to MOPA house-keeping service company in the suburb area of Shanghai where they talked with Eco Wang the founder and his colleagues. For detail about MOPA please click on the link to the Inspire story opposite.
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MOPA |
| The last stop of Robin and Jim during this visit is Shanghai YMCA. Mr. Wu briefed us about the visit to UK in March, and the discussions they have had since then. We were later joined by Mr. MU Qing and Mr. SUN Qi who both visited UK together with Mr. Wu.
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| Overall Jim and Robin were very pleased to see the role that GLI and its Chinese networkers are taking as China builds its harmonious society and communities. They thank all those they visited for their time, friendship and enthusiasm. Fan LI |