MUJI and BCAF Supporting the Great South Slope Village
with its Post-Disaster Recovery

MUJI and BCAF Supporting the Great South Slope Village with its Post-Disaster Recovery

On Jul 28, MUJI and BCAF co-founded the fundraising project for helping the Great South Slope village with its post-disaster recovery. MUJI’s donation will be used to fix the water system and restore the school buildings at Great South Slope.

BCAF X "Great South Slope" Arts Education Project

Co-founded by BCAF and Zuojing Studio and stationed at the Great South Slope Village, Xiuwu, Henan province, the Great South Slope Arts Education Project aims at providing systematic arts education to children live in rural area. through a variety of curriculum. Through the curriculum, we also hope to redefine the aesthetics of the rural landscape.


The arts curriculums will be incorporated into regular course schedules at local schools at Xiuwu. The arts curriculums include arts-related field trips, poetry writing, designing, music, dance, etc. Among them, arts-related field trips and poetry writing classes will be provided on a regular basis, while others will be provided through seasonal courses and summer camps. The results of each class will be evaluated after each school year. Recently, the spring semester courses were completed successfully. (Please click on the photo to view more information about the spring semester arts courses).


However, the Great South Slope Summer Camp, which was scheduled from Jul 15 to Aug 21, was delayed due to the Henan floods.

Post-Disaster Situation at Great South Slope

The devastating impact of the Henan floods is heartbreaking. Since Jul 18, Xiuwu has been experiencing heavy rainfalls and thunderstorms consecutively. The gage heights at all rivers and reservoirs were above the warning heights, causing multiple floods. Roads, farmlands, buildings, and other infrastructures were severely damaged. The floods endangered the lives of one hundred two thousand people and caused significant economy losses.







The Great South Slope Primary School was severely damaged by the floods. The teachers' offices on the first floors were soaked in the water, top floors suffering from water seepage, causing great danger to the students.


The art supplies, table, chairs, and children's works were all destroyed by the flood. The place that used to carry the children's dreams is now dilapidated and ruined.


The details of the damaging situation of Great South Slope Primary School are listed below:

• Clay houses destroyed,
  
• Houses in the southern part damaged by the torrential flood,
  
• Water seepage at the top floor of the school building,
  
• Utility poes fell, causing power outages in the village,
  
• Shortage of water. (Due to the rainfall, villagers could only rely on underground water for domestic use. The underground reservoir holds 12-50 cubic meters of water pumped toward every household. However, the power outage caused problems for water pumping.)
  

MUJI supporting the Great South Slope Village

In 2020, BCAF and MUJI co-invited some influential artists and designers, including Yu Guang(graphic designer), Yansong Ma(architect), Wei Peng(artist), Uma Wang(costume designer), Zhiyuan Xu(writer), to design "Jute My Bag" to raise fund for the Great South Slope Arts Education Project . “Jute My Bag” was launched with other MUJI products as a "New Year Wishes" gift package in Mainland China. 10% of sales revenue was donated to the "BCAF Children in Need Charity Project." (Please click on the picture for more information.)


After hearing about the floods, MUJI offered to help with the post-disaster recovery at Great South Slope at the first minute. BCAF would like to express our deepest gratitude to MUJI for their support. Because of their generosity, we can help the villagers get back to their normal life and protect the children from the disastrous aftermath of the floods. MUJI's donation will be used to fix the water system and restore the school buildings at the Great South Slope.


We also hope to continue the arts curriculum soon after the floods. It is our sincere hope that arts education can cure the post-disaster trauma for the children and bring back to their lives.

*Photos by Xiaojiang Liu
Edited by Pei Xu