China Development Brief (English) August Updates

I realize I haven't posted in a while, but below is the reason why.   Here's our monthly newsletter about new developments at CDB (English):

Translations for August

This month, thanks to the hard work of our CDB Translators, we are pleased to offer translations of five articles highlighting the diversity of China’s NGO/nonprofit sector.   They include articles about:

Lesbian organizing in China

A survey of major public welfare events of 2010 voted on by the readers of CDB and two other NGO publications;

Students who tell their story of starting a NGO in Xiamen;

A Shanghai autism NGO's community building efforts;

The first national forum for NGOs serving the intellectually disabled 

Theme of the Month: Mainstreaming

One theme that emerges from the articles on NGOs serving the intellectually disabled is a desire on the part of many NGOs to find ways to join the mainstream of society.  Mainstreaming strategies include collaborating with and seeking funding from local governments, media, the business sector, and the communities in which they work.   This theme reflects an important change in the thinking and strategies of NGOs that in the past tended to be marginalized and were often better known and appreciated by those in the international community than by the Chinese themselves. 

Upcoming Translations in September

Below is a list of articles that will be appearing in the month of September on CDB (English)’s website. 

1)  “From Opposition to Dialogue”, an article about recent actions taken by the Green Choice Alliance, a network of 34 NGOs, on industrial pollution cases. 

2)  “An Interview with Ma Jun”, an interview with one of China’s best-known environmentalist who is a central player in the Green Choice Alliance.

3)   “A Conversation about Rural Library Projects”, a CDB-moderated discussion with several NGOs about their different approaches and assessments of the effectiveness of rural libraries.

4)  “China’s Huiling: Harmonious Cooperation Requires Rule of Law and Culture”,   Huiling, one of China’s most prominent NGOs serving the intellectually disabled, discusses some of the obstacles it faces in working with the disabled in China’s communities, including unfavorable legislation for civil society organizations.

5)  “Beijing LGBT Center”, a profile of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) Center, one of the best-known LGBT NGOs in China, with a discussion of the future of the LGBT movement in China.

Check Out Our NGO Resources

We also encourage you to peruse our other NGO resources:

             A Special Issue: New Trends in Philanthropy and Civil Society in China (August 2011)

 A Bibliography of Sources on Civil Society ;

 Laws and Regulations Pertaining to the Civil Society Sector;

 Announcements about jobs, conferences and activities in the nonprofit sector.  

Updating CDB’s Directories of NGOs

We are currently in the process of updating CDB’s Directory of International NGOs in China,  and Directory of Chinese NGOs.  The updating of these two directories is a rather large undertaking that will take some time.  We thank you for your patience as we try to get the new information up as quickly as our limited resources will allow. 

Volunteer Translators and Interns

CDB (English) depends heavily on the help of our volunteer CDB translators and interns.   If you are interested in being a CDB translator, check our website here.  We are always looking for good interns who will play an important part in the development of CDB(English).  If you are interested, check our website here.

If you know of others who wish to receive monthly CDB (English) newsletters, please have them email inquiries@chinadevelopmentbrief.cn.  If you do not wish to continue receiving newsletters, please reply to this email with the subject line “Unsubscribe” and we will take you off our mailing list.

  

Best wishes,

  

Shawn Shieh, Editor

China Development Brief (English)

CDB (English)'s Inaugural Special Issue on Philanthropy and Civil Society

I am very pleased to announce our inaugural special issue on New Trends in Philanthropy and Civil Society in China is now available on our new website (www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn).  (P.S. We are not the same as the old China Development Brief which is at www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com). 

Thanks to the fine work of our CDB translators, the 12 articles that make up this special issue have been appearing on our website for the last month.   Together, they provide a compelling and insightful glimpse into an important change taking place in China's nonprofit, philanthropic community.  For each article, I have written a brief introduction to provide context, and inserted explanatory notes through the text.  To provide coherence and context, I have also provided a Preface and Table of Contents for the special issue.

The Preface

·      tells how the special issue was produced;

·      provides a short primer on the nonprofit/philanthropic sector in the PRC;

·      summarizes the key findings of the 12 articles. 

It has been a busy summer for us at CDB(English).   In addition to getting our website up, and our special issue released, I have been traveling in the U.S. promoting CDB(English), and meeting with potential funders and partners.   I gave two public talks on our special issue at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York City, and the Kissinger Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.  The title of the talk was “Same Bed, Different Dreams?: The New Philanthropy and Civil Society in China”.  Both talks were recorded and podcasts/videos are available on the websites of the Wilson Center and National Committee for those interested.

We hope you will take the time to explore the articles and other resources we provide on our website.   These resources include translations of Laws and Regulations governing the nonprofit sector, a Bibliography of sources on civil society, and Announcements of jobs, conferences, and activities of interest to an international audience. 

We will continue to provide translations of selected CDB articles, and develop the other NGO resources on our website.   We will be sending you monthly newsletters alerting you to new material on our website in addition to new CDB (English) developments and events.  If you know of others who wish to receive monthly CDB (English) newsletters, please have them email inquiries@chinadevelopmentbrief.cn.  If you do not wish to continue receiving newsletters, please reply to this email with the subject line “Unsubscribe” and we will take you off our mailing list.

CDB (English) would like to thank CDB, the Ford Foundation, and our CDB (English) translators and interns for their support.   As a translation project of CDB, CDB (English) would not be possible without the hard work of CDB staff who invest long hours to report on the nonprofit sector in China.   We also appreciate the financial support of the Ford Foundation who believed in us from the very start.  Finally, our translations and other resources would not be possible without the work of our CDB Translators, and interns: Emily Chesborough, Stephanie Roach, and Justin Pena. 

Promoting CDB (English)'s special issue on philanthropy and civil society in China

I'm pleased to finally announce that our special issue is now online at China Development Brief (English) (www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn).  The special issue comes with a Preface and Table of Contents.  The Preface provides some information about the special issue, a brief primer on the nonprofit and philanthropic sector in the PRC, and the key findings from the 12 articles translated for the special issue.  I'm very happy with the result and believe CDB's reporting provides a very insightful, thorough look into a very important development in China's civil society.  I'll be emailing a monthly newsletter about the special issue and other developments at CDB (English).  If you'd like to get on the email list, please send me an email at profshawn@gmail.com.

When I was in the U.S. in July, I also gave two public talks on our special issue at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York City, and the Kissinger Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.  The title of the talk was “Same Bed, Different Dreams?: The New Philanthropy and Civil Society in China”.  For those interested, both talks were recorded and podcasts/videos are available on the websites of the National Committee (http://www.ncuscr.org/programs/same-bed-different-dreams) and the Woodrow Wilson Center (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/same-bed-different-dreams-the-new-philanthropy-and-civil-society-china).

A Progress Report on China Development Brief (English)

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted.  April was a difficult month for me personally.  I had to return to the U.S. to take care of my parents whose health has declined suddenly.  My mother died on April 12 and my father’s health took a turn for the worse, and he’s now living with us temporarily here in Beijing.  As a result, I've had to put diversions like this blog aside for the time being.

The good news is that the China Development Brief (English) project is coming along nicely.   As of April, we had almost 40 volunteers sign up to translate CDB articles, and many of them are hard at work translating and reviewing the articles for our first special issue on Philanthropy and Civil Society in China.   Almost all of the translations for the special issue have come in and are now in the process of being reviewed.  We hope to have the special issue ready by next month.  

 We also received a modest grant from the Ford Foundation to translate CDB reports on civil society, and are applying for funds from other sources.   We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

 Finally, thanks to Enway Software Technology Company whose staff has been volunteering their time to develop our website, the CDB (English) website is close to a public launch.   I’ve also had the help of an intern who has been putting together a bibliography of sources on civil society in China.  That bibliography will be available on our website.  This summer, I’ll be assisted by two other interns who will be working on the website development, and updating CDB’s directory of international NGOs in China. 

 The staff at CDB have been a real pleasure to work for.  They have been very responsive, accommodating and professional about working with me, and putting up with my deadlines, even though it means more work for them.   I cannot ask for a better group of people to work with.

As many of you have read about in the international media, this is a difficult time for civil society in China with the government’s repression of human rights and legal activists, and news of growing sensitivity to foreign NGOs.  I wrote a post about this some time ago, then decided to sit on it until I made more revisions, but I will be posting it soon.

Good news for 2011: Starting up China Development Brief (English)

January 27, 2011

I’m pleased to announce that we’ll be starting up China Development Brief (English) this year.  The mission of CDB (English) is to improve understanding and cooperation between the international community and China’s growing nonprofit and philanthropic community by providing authoritative and timely English-language coverage of China’s civil society sector.

To achieve this goal, CDB (English) is partnering with the Beijing Civil Society Development Research Centre which publishes the Chinese-language CDB and maintains a website, www.chinadevelopmentbrief.cn.   The content for CDB (English) will come from translated reports from CDB, the Chinese media, and Chinese academics, as well as translations of government laws and regulations governing the civil society sector.

After that rather long-winded announcement, a bit of explanation is in order here.  In my first post for this blog, written in October of 2009,  I mentioned that I'd been thinking of starting up the English-language China Development Brief (CDB) that was closed down in 2007, but found the environment was not quite right and decided to start writing this blog instead.  For those who are not familiar with CDB, it had been providing some of the most authoritative and timely English-language coverage of development and civil society issues in China over the previous decade.  Since its closure in 2007, the civil society sector in China has been undergoing substantial and complex changes, some of which I've discussed in this blog, yet there has been little English-language coverage aside from occasional media reports, and certainly no informed and sustained coverage.  The Chinese-language CDB, which is a spin-off of the English-language CDB, has however continued to operate and provide quality, detailed coverage on the civil society sector in China.

A few months ago, I decided to give it another go by approaching the Chinese-language CDB about starting up an English-language service.  Not knowing what to expect, I was a bit surprised to find my proposal welcomed enthusiastically by the CDB staff. 

In the coming months, we will be applying for funding and working on developing a website, a pilot newsletter and a special issue on New Trends in Philanthropy and Civil Society in China.  I’m looking to use a “crowd-sourcing” model that relies on communities of volunteer translators to translate the content for the website, newsletter and special issue.  More on that later. 

I’m excited about working with CDB on this project and hope it lays the foundation for high-quality, timely, authoritative yet accessible coverage of China’s civil society sector.  I’m convinced that the time is now ripe to start this project.  Civil society in China has encountered some setbacks, but most informed observers that I know, myself included, have been impressed by the gains made by civil society organizations over the past two years, and we are hoping that those gains build momentum over the next few years.  Whatever the trends maybe, CDB (English) plans to be around to cover them.

With wishes for a Happy Year of the Rabbit,

Shawn Shieh, Founding Editor, China Development Brief (English)