Rebuilding Life after a Disaster

Shuzhen is twenty-nine years old this year. She and her husband have two lovely children; the eldest child is four years old and the youngest is nine months old. They also take care of her two elderly parents-in-law. The family of six live in a small village in Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province. Shuzhen runs a kindergarten, and her husband runs his own aluminum alloy production and processing business. As a whole, the family lived a peaceful and quiet life. 

But their peaceful days were brought to an abrupt end by disasters which happened this year. When the coronavirus outbreak happened, Shuzhen closed down the kindergarten for a long period of time even though she continued to pay the monthly rent faithfully. The pandemic also forced her husband to stop operations and this affected their family income significantly. 

Since June 2020, Wuyuan County suffered from four heavy downpours, which triggered floods and caused heavy losses throughout the county. Just as Shuzhen’s family was gradually recovering from the impact of COVID-19, they were hit again by the devastations of the floods. This time, the disaster also destroyed the tools they depended on to make their livelihood.

“This flood was terrible. The kindergarten was covered in water and caused a lot of damage to our facilities. We are facing a loss of approximately RMB 60,000," said Shuzhen. "Our house collapsed, and the equipment used for my husband’s aluminum alloy work are now laying somewhere in the ruins. They cannot be fixed anymore.” 
After knowing about the situation, World Vision distributed 1,000 quilts, 300 family kits, 100 child friendly kits and 100 hygiene kits in four Townships, namely Dazhanshan, Sikou, Qinghua and Fuchun, on the 20 and 21 July to help provide temporary relief to those affected by the disaster.

As Shuzhen's family is one of those affected, she received a notice from the village committee to collect aid donated by World Vision. She received a quilt. "The quality of the quilt is very good! Our quilts were all soaked. We manage to pull some out from the house. They are still usable after we dried them under the sun. But this new one will be for our children,” Shuzhen said.

Shuzhen and her family are currently living with her sister-in-law. She shares about her plans after the disaster, "We need to build our lives again. For now, we will continue to live with my sister-in-law until we are able to get through this difficult time. I will clean and reopen the kindergarten as soon as possible. My husband will find some odd jobs while he tries to get a loan to buy new equipment. We will save enough money and try to fix our house."

World Vision is currently raising more funds so that we can respond to the needs of more households that have been affected by the disaster. (Interview by Cai Huamin, article written by Liao Haizhen)
 

▲ Shuzhen shares about how the disaster has affected her family and her plans for the future.

 
▲ Shuzhen holding the quilt donated by World Vision.