Brief Introduction to the AIBO Community Development Center of Linquan County,Anhui Province
Established on May 4, 2010, the AIBO Community Development Center of Linquan county (Chang kun's House) focuses on cultivating conscientious citizens, promoting county community development and improving people’s living environment. The center’s strategy includes cultivating awareness of trust, rules and rights in our hometown. The center creates a supportive environment by combining theory and practice. The 13 conventional services include Youth Services, Elderly Services and He’rbutong Book Study Center all for free. In addition, we host 6 theme activities for free as well as semi-annual and annual meetings. We publish our work and financial report of the previous year at the beginning of the next fiscal year.
The AIBO Center was established by Chang Kun, a Human Rights activist working on HIV/AIDS. During his visit in America, Chang Kun was deeply impressed by America’s civil society and community services. On the basis of such impression and the reflection of years of public interest activities of his own, the idea of “civil rights education begins at home ”occurred to him.
From its establishment to the end of December in 2013, an accumulative total of 12,000 people has visited AIBO Community Development Center of Linquan County and participated in activities. We have 637 regular service receivers and over 20 long-term volunteers on duty in every division. In addition, we have already cultivated several activity backbones among the aged. We try to guide people to have mutual trust, abide by rules and pay attention their own rights and community life. On the basis of 13 free services, we also developed 48 regulations and graphs that reflect our Center’s book management, reading and borrowing books, hand painting, internet access, relationships with the service providers, donations, and annual meetings. We want to enrich the cultural life of the community and encourage local residents’ initiative of participation through activities such as purchasing fitness equipment, book-reading awareness and festival association.
AIBO Community Development Center of Linquan County has been reported for a dozen of times by Southern Metropolis Daily, Global Times, Eastday, Nishinippon Shimbun, Kinyoubi and so on and been reprinted by Reader’s Digest, Youth Digest as well as Internet outlets.
Our idea is based on “civil rights” and “home” and all the work focuses on the permanent residents in the community of Chang Kun’s hometown. We expect that good results will be achieved after years of persevering hard work.
Our Philosophy:
Civil rights education begins at home!
Our Vision:
To develop into a community public service for grassroots.
Our practical strategies:
All the services are free so as to guide people’s awareness of turst.
Applying self-management mode to daily work so as to cultivate people’s awareness of rules.
Guiding people to pay attention to communities so as to cultivate people’s awareness of rights.
Our Methods:
1.Implementing cultivation of new citizens through setting up a supportive environment. (All the services are free so as to guide people’s awareness of trust. Applying self-management mode to daily work so as to cultivate people’s awareness of rules. Guiding people to pay attention to communities so as to cultivate people’s awareness of rights.)
2.Cultivating new citizen activists and expanding its influence through extentional and subsequent support and tracking.
3.Introducing senior social workers and advanced civil society theory to cultivate new citizens and based on these activities, to do research and to summarize work, which in return, being applied to the cultivation of new citizens.
Our Short-term Objectives:
1. Provide good books to read, good films to watch, computers to access and space for communication.
2.Carry out computer and network education and guiding people to learn how to use the Internet and to participate in public affairs.
3.Host various positive activities of interest with the participation of volunteers.
4.To become an important public place in local communities.
Our Long-term Objectives:
1.a carrier of information transmission.
2.a base to inspire people’s awareness of healthy environment.
3.a platform for culture cohesion and public affairs communication in local communities.
Our Patterns of Practices:
AIBO Youth Activity Center (four short-term objectives, three long-term objectives and eight free services)
1.providing eight free services to young students in Guangming community, Linquan county, Anhui province.
1) free reading and borrowing of books;
2) free access to the internet and relevant training;
3) free TV and films to watch;
4) free legal advice and legal aid in aspects of public health, anti-discrimination, etc;
5)free health education on infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis;
6) free lecture and discussion forum;
7) free copy services for household registration certificates and ID cards;
8) free “Young Eagles Program 1.0”, a program aimed at enhancing mutual trust between parents and young students as well as providing a platform for youth who have special interests in PE, music or art. (Young students can choose to participate according to their own interests and willing. We will hire professional teachers to give five lessons if there are ten students in one class. In addition, we will make assessment of the students’ learning and give our advice to their parents. We hope to help young students develop their interests as well as improving community environment.)
2.These eight free services are independent of each other, but interrelated and interacted with each other. Community residents and young students of schools nearby can read books in AIBO center, and they can borrow books on conditions that they know how to write e-mails and provide us with a piece of writing (The actual operation depends on specific conditions of each individuals). However, if anyone doesn’t know how to write e-mails, he or she can participate in our free training of the Internet. We provide free copy services of household registration certificates and ID cards to community residents, attracting many of them to our center to enjoy free services.
Elderly Services (development of services on the basis four functional goals)
1.We try to further expand civil rights education in the community by broadening the range of beneficiaries. Development of the Elderly Services follows the visions, ideas and strategies of the AIBO Community Development Center while having some differences in specific methods. We make our best efforts to realize the following targets:
1) Providing services of phychological consulting to community residents to help solve their emotional problems.
2) Carrying out community activities so as to enrich residents’ life, improving the community harmony and promoting community cohesion.
3) Utilizing of all community resources to provide help and supports to people who are in difficulties.
4) Dealing with emergencies and providing emergency rescue services to people in need.
2.We developed the following services on conditions on limited capabilities and resources.
1) Promotion of free reading among the aged
2) Free gathering place for tea parties and symposium as well as dancing, health care and chorus, etc
3) Free video shows, including news, drama, special programmes and so on
4) Free fitness equipment
5) Free parties, such as parties held on Dragon Boat Festival, Double Nine Festival, New Year’s Day, etc
We welcome letters for asking for the following works (Network retrieval is also available) :
2010 Financial Report on AIBO Youth Activity Center of Chang Kun House in Linquan County (Exposure Draft)
2011 Annual Report and Financial Report on Chang Kun House, a Community Public Service in Linquan County, Anhui Province (Exposure Draft) (http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/nBnZk/1358255547)
2012 Annual Meeting (Held on Tomb-sweeping Day) Report and Summary on Chang Kun House, a Community Public Service in Linquan County, Anhui Province (http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/3WwXq)
2012 Annual Report and Financial Report on Chang Kun House, a Community Public Service in Linquan County, Anhui Province (Exposure Draft) (http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/nBoue/1358255857)
2013 Annual Meeting (Held on Tomb-sweeping Day) Report and Summary on AIBO Community Development Center in Linquan County, Anhui Province (http://vdisk.weibo.com/s/wErOS)
2010-2013 Report and Financial Report on AIBO Community Development Center in Linquan County, Anhui Province (http://url.cn/RZCq89)
2010-2013 Compilation Important Articles on AIBO Community Development Center in Linquan County (200 thousands of words)(http://url.cn/PloGLd)
We look forward to your donations. Please contact us:
AIBO Community Development Center in Linquan County, Anhui Province ,China (Post code: 236400)
Tel: 0558-6528944 13349108944
E-mail: aibocenter@aibocenter.org ; 13349108944@189.cn (payment account)
Sina Microblog: @艾博社区发展中心 @安徽民益小敏
Web: http://www.aibocenter.org
Microblog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/youthcenter2010
Address: Guangming Community, Linquan County, Fuyang city, Anhui province
Postcode:236400
Background of Linquan County
Linquan county is in the northwest of Anhui province, and it is under the administration of Fuyang city. With a population of 2.13 million, Linquan county is the largest county in terms of population in the mainland. In addition, it is the largest county which has the most over-population and one of the three counties which have the most drug crimes. Linquan county’s economy ranks at the bottom of Fuyang city, or even in the whole Anhui province. Up to now, Linquan county still has no direct access to railway, highway or waterway transportation. (Activate Linquan - dialogue with the county party secretary Ai-Min ZhuJiangsu Economic News). Besides, Linquan county lags behind in aspects of environment protection, hygiene and civil society development. However, Linquan county is one of the first demonstration areas of AIDS control and prevention in 2003. The Survey of Farmers in China by Chen Guidi and Chun Tao devotes many chapters to depict the stories in Linquan county.
Guangming community on which based the AIBO Community Development Center of Linquan County is the result of urbanization, during the process of which rural areas are systematically transferred into urban areas. However, the community has some characteristics of “urban village”, such as large floating populations. Guangming community has about 100,000 people and there are several primary and secondary schools with more than 10,000 students. However, Guangming Community has no parks, library or other public places of entertainment. In addition, the environment is seriously polluted and public security needs to be improved.