Charity is A Marathon with No Finish Line: EMBA Student Qu Fei

Mar 31-2014   

During an EMBA alumni event, Yao Yang, Dean of National School of Development initiated a ‘photo-lottery’, where a lucky prize-winner is picked at random from several hundred photos.

As Mr. Yao shouts “stop!” the screen freezes on a photo of Qu Fei together with a little Tibetan girl. But nobody there could know what a warm back story the photo will tell.

The story begins with Brightness Project

The moving story of Qu Fei and this little Tibetan girl was one not known by her classmates until the machine ‘stopped’ on her.

As a BiMBA graduate of the EMBA class of 2001, Qu Fei is known to her classmates as being an expert in equity and commodity market design and her frequent participation in the Brightness Project.

The Brightness Project is a charity event launched by BiMBA alumni in 2006. Each year they visit rural and poor areas where medical conditions are very limited. Together with eye experts from Shanghai they provide free tests and operations for local cataract patients. This is a very tough task.

They leave the city and haul heavy equipment to rural areas where running water is not readily available, and sometimes engage themselves in examinations and operations for more than ten days in a row, all the while risking infectious diseases at high altitudes.

But they have persisted throughout these eight years, beginning with Garze (Sichuan), they have examined several thousand patients and brought sight to nearly one thousand patients in places including Altay (Xinjiang), Gannan (Gansu), Jalaid Banner (Inner Mongolia), Liangshan and Nanjiang (both in Sichuan).

In the words by Mr. Zhang Xingru, Vice Director of Shanghai Putuo Central Hospital, EMBA graduate of the 2004 class and the initiator of the Project, the participants in the Brightness Project are all ‘doers’ with charitable hearts and no fear for hardships and challenges.

Qu Fei, who has participated in the Project six out of the total eight years, is such a ‘doer’. We can say, her fate with the little Tibetan girl was "destined".

They met each other during the 2012 Brightness Project in Golog, Qinghai province. On the last day of Qu Fei’s stay, a Buddhist monk arrived at the medical room, with a little girl in his arms. The girl’s eyes rolled upwards and whilst responsive to sounds, they were not able to focus. Looking closely, they found white spots in her pupils – she was blind, suffering from cataracts from birth. Her name is Yimao, she was three years old.

Her condition was so serious that the operation could not be done locally. While the whole team were discussing solutions, Qu Fei left quietly to visit the girl's home led by Yimao's uncle. She found that Yimao was abandoned by her parents and left to her grandmother. If the team went back the next day as scheduled, one can imagine how would be the fate of the poor Yimao.

With consent of the girl's family, Qu Fei brought Yimao to Shanghai assisted by the team and helped her gain basic sight after the operation by a top eye surgeon. Though Yimao's visual ability remains basic, the operation has given her the tools to lead an independent life in the future.

Love is like a marathon.

After a long recovery, Qu Fei sent the girl back to Golog but she still keeps contact with Yimao and provides help for her.

Qu Fei said that when doing a charity, what you could see is only the starting point. As for the finishing line, it is farther than a marathon.

This is proved by the story of Yimao. Not long after the operation, Yimao's grandmother died of disease leaving Yimao again without a home. Upon hearing the news, Qu Fei put off all work and went to the highland again. This time, she brought Yimao to Shanghai and started to take care of her.

"At first, I just wanted to give her some comfort by taking care of her for some time to better regain her sight before sending her home," Qu Fei said.

But her intention got changed by one little thing. One day in a street, Yimao saw a sculpture shaped as a child and she asked Qu Fei eagerly, "Does he have a mom? Does he have a home? Did his new mom also help him see again? Does he live happily now with his new mom just like me?"

The innocent question touched Qu Fei’s heart "I immediately started crying and I was unable to reply to her for quite some time ". Said Qu Fei.

She decided then to try her best to love this girl as a mother with a complete family and let her have dolls, braided her hair, and gave her praise and care, just like other little girls.

Upon making this decision, Qu Fei visited the highland once again to explain her decision to Yimao's relatives. With their consent, Yimao became the newest member of Qu Fei's family.

Charity has no finishing line

Aside from the Brightness Project, Qu Fei is also a volunteer of the Western Children Help Fund to take charge of a spine malformation rescue project "Butterfly".

When providing help to a Tibetan girl Maoji, who was suffering from spine malformation, Qu Fei read lots of medical material globally about the disease and surveyed one after another the list of the most authoritative experts both home and abroad. She took Maoji's X ray with her to visit experts in many big hospitals, raised awareness of the disease and funds for the operation. Finally, Maoji received the difficult operation which was successful. The Butterfly Project has thus won trust and support from a wide range of people. This also motivated Qu Fei to put more in this unknown project for public benefit.

"This is about simple human sympathy, the feeling when you see people in hardship. It is this sympathy that makes you want to help." When explaining why she would care about the patients so much, she said, "Children in rural areas often face two major obstacles - one is lack of information, so that they don't know whether a disease can be cured or even how. Another is money. Their families are often very poor, even if some of the expense can be reimbursed later, they cannot afford the first payment. If we help remove these obstacles, we can change their destiny by just a little money and time".

"I do charity to help others , not for others to idolize me. " Qu Fei concluded.