The development history of carrying an extra kilogram

In the beautiful Duoyishu Village in Yuanyang, Yunnan, among the children of more than 100 families, only 2 girls can go to junior high school. Apart from textbooks, children have no other children's books, and many students don't even have the simplest erasers and pencil sharpeners. Most tourists may feel sad when seeing such a scene. Some caring tourists may leave some belongings to give to local children, but a netizen named Anzhu who traveled there thought more: "Can we use the huge number of tourists to help children in these impoverished and backward areas?"

So, in April 2004, Anzhu put forward an idea on the Internet called "Carry One More Kilogram" " plan. The initial idea is very simple, encouraging every tourist to carry some books or stationery when traveling and bring them to poor schools and children along the way. In order to make all this more effective, Anzhu established the "Carry One More Kilogram" website to collect and provide school information and needs on the website as a reference for tourists before traveling.

“One kilogram is very light, but if there are thousands of such kilograms, its value is immeasurable.” This simple concept was immediately widely recognized by travel enthusiasts. Relying on word of mouth, in less than a year, travelers from Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing have organized more than 20 activities on their own, with more than 200 participants. The activities have spread to Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and other places. Donated more than 10,000 pieces of stationery and more than 3,000 books. Faced with the achievements, An Zhu was very happy, but his behavior was also questioned: "For tourists, how meaningful is it to carry a little bit of stuff across long distances every time?" "For mountainous areas, what is the use of this small amount of supplies each time? If you are short of supplies, it is better to mail them directly from the post office. The quantity is large and it saves time."

These doubters The sound confused Anzhu. Therefore, he went to Guizhou and Guangxi again for research and practice in August 2004. Through communication with local teachers and volunteers, Anzhu affirmed his action of “everyone carries an extra kilogram”. But while drinking, a literature teacher from Baibi Primary School in Guizhou accidentally said: "The lack of material can still be overcome, but the real problem is the backwardness of concepts and information." This sentence woke up the dreamer, and made Zhu feel sorry for his ignorance. Ashamed of my shortsightedness. He realized that the significance of "carrying an extra kilogram" cannot just stay at the material level. Travelers should also "carry" information and concepts. In face-to-face communication with children, they should broaden their horizons and let them They understand the outside world.

Afterwards, Anzhu made some modifications to the "Carry One More Kilogram" action guide. He suggested that travelers should prepare their own letter paper, envelopes with return addresses and stamps, and hand them to their children when they meet, so as to maintain long-term communication with each other; download and print some dream cards to encourage children to write down their dreams ;Send your travel stories, photos, dream cards, etc. to the website so that donors can exchange experiences...

"We do not emphasize pity and sympathy. If the original 'Carry One More Kilogram' was just a promotion Poverty alleviation, then the current 'Carry One More Kilogram' focuses more on equal spiritual communication." Anzhu emphasized this point repeatedly.

This joy of equal communication has also become the common sense of the members of "Carry One More Kilogram". “Actually, the most attractive thing about this travel method is that it is full of human touch. I gave some small gifts, and the children gave us more in return, with bright smiles and constant progress... It is not so much that we helped these children, It is better to say that these children have given us inspiration, touch and happiness. This extra kilogram is actually given to myself." Ansel, a netizen from Guangzhou, summed up his feelings after returning from Yunnan.

At present, under the leadership of An Zhu, the "Carry One More Kilogram" activity and website are all carried out and maintained by volunteers in their spare time. Compared with the influence they have gained, this cannot but be said to be a miracle. . But Anzhu is still not satisfied with this. He has been trying to cooperate with business forces. He believes: "Today, companies should be able to do more than just write a check. I believe that only when society The world will become hopeful only when all kinds of forces are striving for a common and better tomorrow. "One kilogram is very light, but if there are thousands of such one kilogram, it will become more and more hopeful." The value is immeasurable." An Zhu arrived in Chengdu at 8 pm on October 12. He has visited this warm city many times. "Warmth" is An Zhu's word. He said that Chengdu's pleasant environment is always there. It can give him some comfort in his anxious and panicked heart. According to the plan, he took a seat in front of a barbecue stall, then sat down and watched the eldest sister shaking her fan and the white smoke slowly rising in the night sky. An Zhu suddenly felt inexplicably moved: "What a familiar life in Chengdu!"

“In the afternoon I was still under the dappled tree shadows in the sunshine on the outskirts of Beijing, and in the evening I was already sitting on the streets of Chengdu.” From May to September, the five months of tension can finally relax. Faced with the complex post-earthquake rescue work, they also had to endure the hardships of life and were not paid a penny for three whole months. All full-time employees can only eat instant noodles. These young people devoted themselves to charity with passion, but the difficult situation stripped away their courage bit by bit.

As a manager, Anzhu was anxious but helpless. During that time, they lost their only support due to the delay in receiving the funds they applied for.

This is the norm for all Chinese non-governmental public welfare organizations. As the lowest executors, they often lack continuous financial support, so applying to the IMF is the only correct way. Non-governmental public welfare organizations hovering in the cracks of policies are still working silently, waiting for the blessing of policies. An Zhu and his "One Kilogram More" organization waited for four years. During these four years, countless non-governmental public welfare organizations collapsed, and some surviving non-governmental organizations had to seek changes. Anzhu takes "Carry One More Kilogram" into a corporatized business, registers a legal company, operates profit-making projects, and then operates "Carry One More Kilogram" for public welfare. Such a shift solves both legalization and sustainable funding issues. Under the current situation, not changing will only lead to death. "If you can't survive today, then what the future will look like means nothing to you." Anzhu said.

The result of the change is that Anzhu's journey has become smoother, but it is still full of difficulties. Anzhu said that although it is difficult, he at least sees some faint hope. During this trip to Chengdu, he wanted to see the living conditions of the people in the disaster area and the prefabricated libraries they built. In addition, he still needs to interview several full-time librarians. This is not only his transformation into a company, but also an important step in the sustainable development of "carrying an extra kilogram" to aid disaster areas.

In 2004, "Carry One More Kilogram" first used charity tourism as an entry point to advocate a happy, simple and easy charity action to the public. It encouraged everyone to carry the necessary items for school when traveling. With a small amount of supplies, they visited schools during the trip and at the same time communicated and interacted with rural students, spreading knowledge and sharing happiness. "Carry One More Kilogram" advocates the values ??of equal communication and happy action. It believes that every rural child is happy and talented. Public welfare action is a kind of mutual sharing and communication rather than unilateral sympathy and giving. This subverts the traditional charity concepts of "sympathy, pity, giving, rescue" and so on. Because of its humanistic concept, "Carry an Extra Kilogram" has been welcomed by participants and has been widely disseminated. One participant said: “In fact, the most attractive thing about this kind of tourism is that it is full of human touch. I gave some small gifts, and the children gave us a lot in return, with bright smiles and constant progress, often without knowing it. Unconsciously, it gave me a lot of inspiration and touch, so I think it is not so much that we help these children, but that these children give us happiness. This extra kilogram is actually given to ourselves. ”< /p>

With a deeper understanding of rural education needs, "One Kilogram More" has also begun to try more social innovations and design large-scale solutions for rural education. In 2007, "One Kilogram More" proposed the Twin Books project, which uses books as a medium to allow rural children to obtain new high-quality books while establishing connections with urban children, enhancing understanding and growing together. As of April 2008, the project has delivered nearly 2,000 brand-new books to rural students. After four years of development, "Carry One More Kilogram" has become a public welfare platform for users to collaborate and participate. All information on the website comes from users, is collected, uploaded and maintained by users; all public welfare activities are also organized and participated by users voluntarily. The "Carry One More Kilogram" website is committed to providing a full range of platform support for users' public welfare actions. We hope that through this collaborative public welfare participation method, "One More Kilogram" can provide more than 5,000 rural schools in China with systematic services in the areas of books, computers, Internet, education and teachers by the end of 2012.

In terms of operation, "One More Kilogram" has achieved a virtuous cycle of public welfare activities at a very low cost. Participants of "Carry an Extra Kilogram" spontaneously organize activities on the website, visit schools, and continue to pay attention to and serve the school after the trip; they also collect new school information along the way to expand the scope of school services of "Carry an Extra Kilogram" . In 2007 alone, "Carry an Extra Kilogram" participants conducted more than 130 charity trips and discovered 98 new service schools. Currently, there are more than 300 service schools that carry one extra kilogram, covering famous rural tourist spots in southwest China and other provinces.

In order to achieve its own sustainable development, "One More Kilogram" has established a full-time team and has legally registered the organization in the form of a company based on China's current policies and legal realities. "One More Kilogram" positions itself as a social enterprise, that is, it does not aim at profit and achieves large-scale social improvement through commercial operation methods. The example of "Carrying an Extra Kilogram" is Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize: an organization operating in the form of a commercial bank, it has helped millions of Bangladeshi women escape poverty and has copied its model around the world. "Carry One More Kilogram" has been continuously collected by caring people from all walks of life, and has included information on nearly a thousand impoverished schools across the country. While improving the information of each poor school, we are also disseminating the information of poor schools, hoping to get more people to pay attention to and help these poor schools.

Public welfare is not only the patent of the country and enterprises, but also the rights and responsibilities of ordinary people. As the media focuses on caring figures who are committed to charity activities, everyone is paying more and more attention to the ordinary people around them who are silently doing charity and loving actions.

In 2012, the "Looking for Student Aid Micro-Celebrities" activity launched by the public welfare micro-group on the Sina Weibo platform (Micro-Public Welfare*Love Student Aid) was recognized by the Sina Weibo platform and actively promoted and spread among netizens. Thanks to their enthusiastic recommendations and attention, three grassroots “student aid micro-citizens” were elected on July 15th. They are Wang Chunhui, who is born in the 1990s and inherits great love, Wang Zhihang, the godmother of fraternity, and Tian Chengzhi, who insists on helping students.

Wang Chunhui, born in the 1990s, is an ordinary college student from China University of Geosciences. As a freshman, he has already become the leader of the volunteer teaching club. He has received financial support from Jiaduobao, and now he wants to pass on the great love through teaching as a public welfare method. Moreover, Wang Chunhui’s inheritance of charity is not a one-person battle. He is already the leader of the volunteer teaching club of China University of Geosciences. While inheriting his love for charity, he has also successfully turned his personal charity persistence into a group persistence. Although Wang Zhihang, the philanthropic godmother, and Tian Chengzhi, the Beidiao student assistant, are not rich, they have turned their passion for public welfare into practical actions to help children in mountainous areas.

Their actions tell us that as long as we want to do charity, we can do it.