Overseas Chinese and Foreign Citizens of Chinese Descent Continued to Donate to Sichuan Quake-stricken Areas

The disaster situation of the earthquake of Wenchuan, China worried the overseas Chinese and foreign citizens of Chinese descent, the personnel of Chinese-invested institutes and Chinese students studying abroad, who continued to proactively donate money and goods while they expressed the condolences on the victims in the earthquake.

On May 24, Chinese Association of New Zealand Inc. and the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification in New Zealand sponsored a benefit performance and sale in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland and collected NZD150000 (1 ZL dollar equals about 0.78 US dollar). New Zealand Chinese TV Station “tvz.cn” currently also collected nearly NZD70,000. The students studying abroad and overseas Chinese as well as foreign citizens of Chinese decent in Auckland spontaneously organized the “love paper cranes” activity and collected more than NZD22000.

Business Association of China in Vietnam, on the afternoon of May 24, organized a donation activity, and some 300 representatives from the Chinese-vested institutes and persons working in Vietnam took part. In the activity about RMB400,000 was collected, which would be handed over to the people in the disaster areas via Chinese Embassy to Vietnam.

On May 24, Belgium CSAL, Brussels CSA and overseas Chinese students in Leuven Engineering Technology College held a benefit sale for disaster relief in Leuven. By the time the report released articles, the donations had reached EUR3,000. Before this, CSAL and other universities’ CSA of Belgium launched a donation proposal to Chinese students studying in Belgium and got proactive response. Up to now, the donations have nearly EUR20000.

Several hundred overseas Chinese, foreign citizens of Chinese decent and students studying in Sweden on the night of May 23, came to Ser-geis torg of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden to express the condolences on the victims in the earthquake of Wenchuan, Sichuan. People formed a heart with white candles, in the middle of which were red candles spelling “5. 12”. Three girls stood in front of candles and flowers and others stood in silence for three minutes with a burning candle in hand.

On the evening of May 23, about 500 students studying abroad and overseas Chinese held a candlelight staying-up in the square of northern UK’s port city Glasgow to pray for the people in Sichuan quake-hit areas. Consul general Tan Xiutian and the staff of Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Edinburgh took part in the activity.

According to the announcement released on May 23 by US Shin Shin Educational Foundation whose headquarters was in San Francisco, by May 22, the foundation had collected more than USD 90,000. The donations would be handed over to the relevant departments in disaster areas for the school reconstruction.