Asian Partners of SCISome of the interesting emails received by the Asia International Working Group (AIWG) are - guess what - partnership requests. Don’t be surprised that most requests come from a country that is a rising economic power soon to overtake the United States of America: China! Both Cross-Border Development (from Macau) and Love Without Borders Organization (from Beijing) responded to us in positive way after reading SCI’s Procedures for Partnership (ICM98/99). Nevertheless, it was too difficult for them to keep to one of the main requirements of “...demonstrating the capability to organize voluntary service activities.” So, we decided to K.I.V. (Keep In View) them – as we did with many other requests.
Partner in Hong Kong..
Good news is, we have VolTra, “...the first Hong Kong based NGO...VolTra provides international workcamps and voluntary projects...” After initial communication, I believe they will be well taken care of by SCI Japan and/or their contact in Hong Kong, having run their first successful workcamp together recently.
and in Taiwan!
If this is not yet enough, then I am happy to introduce to you Vision Youth Actions (VYA) from Taiwan, who is sending volunteers to SCI Malaysia’s 2009 winter camp. This will surely kick start interesting talks about more bilateral cooperation.
Cooperation within Asia-Pacific region
So there you have it: regional cooperation with SCI Asian branches and their Asian Pacific partners. It could not have happened at a more appropriate time or in a more meaningful fashion. However, sometimes, not receiving any email at all can also be interesting: as in the case of the partnership request from Harmony Foundation (Pakistan) and the SCI Contact in Pakistan – both sides did not respond after the first introduction email by the Asian International Working Group.
In such cases however, AIWG will only K.I.V. the former :-)
Prepared by
@LOW@
Low Kok Chang
Contact person AIWG 2008/2009 |
