Beijing Maple: A mix of simplicity and complexity
“Since its birth,” said Ms Wang Xingjuan, 78-year-old founder of Beijing Maple, slowly and softly caressing her silver hairs back and forth, “Beijing Maple has been keeping its head down on securing women’s endowed rights, arousing their awareness of independence, and helping them keep up with social changes. Of course, our ultimate goal is to accomplish sex equality. ”
Despite its ups and downs, Beijing Maple has not only survived but thrived on its dream. Twenty years is doubtlessly a legendary number in China’s NPO history, not to mention the number of its beneficiaries.
John Wood, founder of Room to Read, talked about women in his autobiography Leave Microsoft to Change the World:
Women lead a tougher life in many developing countries. Usually out of cultural stereotype and male-dominant tradition, their voices are ignored, and their opinions (and more often than not, their life) considered insignificant.
Such inequality, worsened by indifference of the society, has never brought Beijing Maple Psychological Counseling Center for Women (Beijing Maple in short) to its kneel in the past two decades. And it’s the persistent pursuit of wiping out these inequalities that has pulled it through thick and thin.
“Since its birth,” said Ms Wang Xingjuan, 78-year-old founder of Beijing Maple, slowly and softly caressing her silver hairs back and forth, “Beijing Maple has been keeping its head down on securing women’s endowed rights, arousing their awareness of independence, and helping them keep up with social changes. Of course, our ultimate goal is to accomplish sex equality. ”
Despite its ups and downs, Beijing Maple has not only survived but thrived on its dream. Twenty years is doubtlessly a legendary number in China’s NPO history, not to mention the number of its beneficiaries.
“Only unprecedented programs could be funded.”
Funding shortage is a common problem for both big and small NPOs. So the question—how to raise more funds to support more programs and to help more people—comes atop. More profoundly, grass-root NPOs are not granted official registrations in China; so governmental funding is a no-go area for them. . According to Ms Wang, Beijing Maple, having financed itself mainly out of civil funds, has not received a single fund from the government.
So comes the challenge—the funding application procedure. As strict as public bidding in the commercial sector, funding has to go through brutal competition. “Beijing maple has been trying its utmost to think out programs that keep up with and, even one step further, keep ahead of others,” explained Ms. Wang, “because only unprecedented programs could be funded.” Accordingly the essential of NPO operation is not money but programs and talents, with which money may flood in.
Win-win Between Volunteers and NPO
According to Ms. Hou Zhiming, office director of Beijing Maple, Beijing Maple has been built on its respect and research on volunteers since establishment. Over the past 20 years, 200 plus volunteers have been absorbed into programs of all kind, adding up into a compelling force and resource that braced Beijing Maple’s growth.
Beijing Maple insists on a win-win policy for volunteers and the organization itself, as was introduced by Ms. Hou. “We need volunteers’ service as much as they need personal development in our organization,” she continued, “however, we have a maturely strict procedure in recruiting volunteers. After a four-round barrier of application, interview, training and internship, averagely only 20 of the initial 70 plus applicants could be qualified. And this seemingly rigid operation in human resources is actually kind of a must in psychological service.”
In volunteers’ eyes, Beijing Maple is a platform to give love and care, rather than simple labor. Just as love-sharing is of irreplaceable value to charity, so is the self-improvement of volunteers to an NPO. In Beijing Maple, volunteers are fully equipped with the rights to participate in decision-making. They are invited to program planning conferences, and if interested, would be asked to write program applications. Also they are exposed to financial reports, annual plans and the like. More worthwhile to mention is their engagement when the organization is stuck in trouble: more often than not they contribute to problem solutions together with top brass. What’s more, some of them could be sent abroad for further study. But only the luckiest enjoy the opportunity. To cater to most of others, a monthly symposium is held inviting experts from Hong Kong, Taiwan or abroad to present lectures on psychological assistance and other professional skills.
Numbers speak louder than words. Till last year Beijing Maple hotline had 384 volunteers professionally trained in 13 divided periods, of whom up to 64 dedicated five years in Beijing Maple, and 23 devoted more than 10 years. The majority of these volunteers came from universities, hospitals, publishing houses and psychological consultation institutions.
Rights endowing is a dynamic balance, not just a mirage
Since the “social work” concept found its root in China 20 years ago, rights endowing has been repeatedly broadcasted in the circle of NPOs. One of the pioneers in rights endowing research and practice, Beijing Maple has always been an active force in advocating women’s endowed rights as a way to realize sex equality.
Years of observation and practice has filtered through to an in-depth insight over endowed rights. “Time has changed,” said Ms Hou, “so has the tradition that men work outside while women take care of housework. Women nowadays have a bigger-than-ever say in political, economical and social fields.
“However,” she went on after a brief break, as if pondering what to say next, “it appears self-conflicting that given more economic responsibilities, women would have to put aside their roles as a mother, a wife or a daughter, which breaks the traditional balance in a family. But this argument builds on a misplaced presupposition—that women are indisputably bound with family affairs. As a matter of fact, women have rights to their own happiness. In the long run, women would to a great extent, once finding their own happiness and confidence, free men from pressures, which reaches another balance. This is just our ‘dynamic balance theory’ !” Then burst a fit of chuckling.
“So rights endowing is not just a mirage,” she concluded in the end, “when endowing rights to a certain powerless group, you have to take people around them into account. It’s a transition from one balance to another.”
Simple as it sounds, it’s quite complex in practice. And the well-matched mix of simplicity and complexity all comes down to 20 years of regretless hard work. With the groundwork laid through these years, Beijing Maple is gathering power as it’s eyeing the day women in China really become “half the sky”.
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