Let's Do Good! Florasis' Second Annual Charity Month Roundup

The Yi Jew's Harp, Yi Yueqin (lute), and Yi folk songs...as these precious cultural arts come into view, our second Charity Month begins at our headquarters with our parent company, Yige Enterprises!

Since its establishment, the Zhejiang Yige Charity Foundation has valued cultural preservation and heritage as part of our mission. We strongly believe in promoting and preserving the heritage and customs of ethnic minority groups through charity. 

During our 2022 Charity Month, we invited 22 Miao girls from Guiping country, Guizhou, to share their traditional culture through Miao and Dong folk songs. In order to promote awareness of other minority cultures and intangible heritage, this year we invited folk art practitioners and Yi students from Liangshan Prefecture to share their experiences and talent. 

Every April, our Charity Month includes community activities, events, charity sales, and charity visits every employee can participate in. At the core of our foundation, we believe in treating others as we want to be treated and aim to create a positive culture. 

In August 2022, to encourage members to participate in charitable activities, we officially launched a system where every employee would be compensated for four hours of charity work. Employees were given financial support and planned their own charitable activities and earned points to become Charity Stars. Activities included basketball training for children in Shangyu Town Primary School in Jiangshan City, charitable visits to children in need, gifting mooncakes to sanitation workers, and encouraging their loved ones to take part.

Before the kick-off ceremony for this year's Charity Month, Yige executives, folk art practitioners, and children presented flowers and trophies to 10 Charity Stars and congratulated their efforts.    

Additionally, each Charity Star received compensation for their charity visit to Liangshan, Sichuan. There they learned about the lives of children in Liangshan, the daily lives of Yi people, and experienced the charm and beauty of their intangible arts and culture. 

On 3 April, 2023, we officially kicked off this year's Charity Month. We were joined by the Director of Liangshan Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, Kere Xiaofu, the Secretary General of Liangshan Education Foundation Rong Jinglong, folk art practitioners Atie Shuori, Jishi Rihei, Azhi Megebi, six students from Liangshan Canopy School and Xidewaer school, the senior management of Yige Group, and the Secretary General of Yige Foundation and staff representatives. 

Our executives announced that we will continue to preserve and pass on culture to future generations. We hope more people will actively participate in charity work and feel a sense of accomplishment as they contribute.

At the kick off ceremony, folk art practitioners and children from Liangshan Prefecture performed Yi folk songs, played the Yi Jew's Harp, the Sichuanese Yi yueqin (lute), and sang gaoqiang opera to demonstrate their local culture. 

At the event, the Yige Charity Foundation organized the "Yige Charity Bazaar." This included 17 charity stalls and thousands of donated items for sale. We also invited the Xiasha Home for the Disabled and Hangzhou Star Workshop Mental Health Center to join us. 

We managed to raise 34,912.08 RMB from 1,000 charity bazaar sales. From Yige employees alone, we managed to raise 29,644.08 RMB to support children in Liangshan, Sichuan. 

In addition to the main bazaar, there were also tie dying, beading, and first aid training workshops and other charitable activities to help people learn new skills while doing good.  

In the future, the Yige Foundation will continue having an annual Charity Month to support those in need in the long and short term. We hope to promote a generous and loving spirit based on fun charity activities and share the beauty of minority cultures.   

A huge thank you to the Director of Liangshan Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, Kere Xiaofu, the Secretary General of Liangshan Education Foundation Rong Jinglong, folk art practitioners Atie Shuori, Jishi Rihei, Azhi Megebi, six students from Liangshan Canopy School and Xidewaer school, the Xiasha Home for the Disabled, the Hangzhou Star Workshop Mental Health Center, and the executives from Yige group for their support in this event. 

Since its establishment, the Yige Charity Foundation has focused on education and charity, especially for children in need.

In 2022, we established the Yige Scholarship for teachers and students of Nanjing Country No.2 Middle School in Fujian Province.

The Florasis Scholarship and Teaching Grant Distribution Ceremony was successfully held to honor students and teachers with outstanding achievements for the next semester in 2022. The head of Florasis Zhangzhou and school leaders presented awards to 144 students and 130 teachers.  

As education is highly important to future success, we hope to continue rewarding outstanding talent and providing assistance to students and teachers in need.  

From April 13-17, the Charity Stars' first visit to Liangshan was filled with fascinating experiences and demonstrations of the local customs and culture.   

In August 2022, to encourage members to participate in charitable activities, we officially launched a system where every employee would be compensated for four hours of charity work. Employees were given financial support and planned their own charitable activities and earned points to become Charity Stars. Activities included basketball games, charitable visits to children in need, gifting mooncakes to sanitation workers, and encouraging their loved ones to take part.

In April 2023, we kicked off the second Charity Month and our Charity Stars received flowers and paid a public welfare visit. The Stars traveled to Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan, and learned about the lives of the local children, the daily lives of the Yi people, and their cultural customs.  

On April 13, the Charity Stars went to Xichang City to start their five-day visit. The first stop was the Liangshan Yi People Slave Society Museum to learn about the long history and unique culture of the Yi people in Liangshan.   

In Liangshan Prefecture, there are 14 ethnic groups: Yi, Han, Tibetan, Hui, Mongolian, Miao, Lisu, Dai, Nakhi, Buyei, Zhuang, Bai, Man, and Tujia, with a total of 338 rich and colorful intangible heritage activities and arts.

On 14 April, the Charity Stars went to visit the Lisu tribe in Nanshan, Dechang County. They learned about fireweed weaving from a local practitioner. They were very impressed to see a single leaf become a piece of cloth and learned about twisting, weaving, and embroidery.    

On 15 April, the Charity Stars went to Xichang Canopy School and visited the Florasis building and the "Ethnic Cultures Learning" room to understand how charitable activities were carried out by Florasis.  

During our Charity Foundation's research about the school, we learned about Mujia (pseudonym). Mujia is a sixth grader whose parents couldn't accompany him to school because they had to tend sheep. Mujia prepared his own food and ate and slept alone. During the Charity Star's visit, they spent the afternoon with Mujia and had lunch with him.  

At noon, everyone came to Mujia's home to wash, cut, and fry vegetables.

Mujia told us that ever since he started second grade, apart from the winter and summer holidays, he lived alone near the school. He rests when it's dark, and wakes up when the cock crows. Even though the afternoon was short, we hope Mujia gained some good memories from the visit. 

Mujia also received some basketballs and paintbrushes. We hope he enjoyed his gift! 

At noon, after enjoying Mujia's family hospitality, the Charity Stars had an authentic Yi meal and learned about Yi food culture. 

The round trip took eight hours, but it was absolutely worth it! We hope that the short reunion brought some warmth to Mujia and his family.

After the trip, we asked the Charity Stars about their thoughts and experiences: 

Sansan: Charities need a small number of people to get things going and bring inspiration, then more people will come. Charity itself is the fuel to the fire. 

Yiyuan: Whether knowledge can necessarily change fate, we don't know, but hopefully, he [Mujia] can. I hope he can always run happily and recklessly, running to a better life.

Yezi: This trip also made me understand more deeply the significance of the company's "Future Generations" project, which allows intangible heritage, which is about to "disappear" as society develops. By adding them to textbooks, the culture can be passed on. This is a group of lovely people doing a meaningful thing, and more people can support it in the long run!

Qinger: This shock made me believe that this charity visit will be one of the most unforgettable journeys in my life; it also inspired me to do my best to participate, to influence and change lives, and to love the world through charitable action. 

And thus ends the first charity visit! As our charitable contributions continue, the Yige Foundation will select ten Charity Stars every year and invite them to explore and experience more minority cultures. Hopefully, these experiences will inspire everyone to keep supporting charitable causes! 

Water painting is a treasured world intangible cultural heritage. Today, our students and star children combined water paint and silk scarves to complete a silk scarf craft.

Under the supervision of Ms. Zhu from Star Children, we visited where the children live, study, rest, and play. We also learned about how to best interact with children with autism, and Ms. Zhu said the children were very happy to play and accompany us. 

Ms. Zhu first explained how water painting worked, and the activity began. After preparing the solution, dropping the paint, creating patterns, soaking, and then drying, we all finished a scarf together. 

During the activity, we interacted with the children and discussed the patterns they had drawn together. The children were excited to express their ideas and actively worked on them, and in the end, the children gave us the silk scarves we had finished together. 

We hope that more people will take part in fun charitable activities like this one because even a small activity like this one can change lives! 

As the Asian Games draws near, the atmosphere is getting stronger and stronger as we get ready to welcome our visitors to Hangzhou!

To create a safe living environment and keep our city beautiful, volunteers checked local apartment buildings, posted signs to help people locate trash removal areas, and explained the hazards of clutter in public areas. 

Volunteers encouraged dog walkers to clean up after their pets and removed trash from the parks and sidewalks. 

This year, Hangzhou is hosting the Asian Games. To make sure our guests have a good time and perform their best, we hope to make Hangzhou a beautiful place to visit! 

On the afternoon of 20 April, employees from Yige Foundation and staff from the Yunshui community formed brought rice, cooking oil, pillows, quilts, umbrellas, and other necessities to five elderly families in the community. 

Many thanks to our volunteers for reminding us to respect and visit the elderly. We hope this inspires you to take part in charitable visits like this one! 

We visited the Xiasha Home for the Disabled to make DIY canvas bags. It was a fun-filled day where we made many meaningful connections through creative expression. Since the Asian Games are fast approaching, we decided to draw the mascots on each bag to wish for a smooth Asian Games in Hangzhou.