Helping Sichuan Rebuild
Helping Sichuan Rebuild
Providing rapid response to help rebuild Sichuan after the devastating earthquake on May 12, 2008, colleagues, students and alumni of the University of Hong Kong not only dug deep into their pockets to help provide immediate relief to the grief-stricken survivors, but also organized themselves in the most efficient manner to make best use of our strengths as an institution of higher learning to help the people of Sichuan in tangible ways. These include rebuilding projects, pre-school programmes, psychosocial intervention, assistance to mental patients, rehabilitation centres and a public awareness campaign, involving our experts across different disciplines, including microbiologists, engineers, orthopaedic surgeons and suicide prevention specialists.
The Yuanjia Primary School project saw our faculty members in Engineering and a zealous group of students across different disciplines, Engineering, Architecture, Business and Economics, Law, Medicine, and Social Sciences, bringing their knowledge and expertise to Sichuan to build a solar-powered multimedia satellite e-learning system for the reconstructed school. They contributed their expert knowledge in computers, networks, programming, solar energy, multimedia, and e-learning; and they introduced the concept of renewable energy to local students and promoted their awareness of environmental protection. The first Sichuan-Hong Kong interactive class was held on August 5, 2009 in the new multimedia computer laboratory, where enthusiastic Yuanjia students talked to staff, students and guests at HKU through the multimedia network newly installed in their school that had been rebuilt from rubble.
Our colleagues and students published a book entitled Reconstruction after the 512 Earthquake in May 2010, as a memorial to the earthquake after two years, to share their meaningful experience in this KE project.