Introduction

Xundian (XD) County is located 102 km northeast of Kunming, 1.5 hours away by bus. It became a Hui and Yi autonomous county in 1979 and comes under the jurisdiction of Kunming city. Xundian County covers a land area of 3598 km2 and has a unique geography with more than 80 lakes spread over 6 townships (Rende 仁德, Kedu 柯渡, Tangzi 塘子, Gongshan功山, Yangjie羊街 and Tangdian倘甸), 16 villages and 173 hamlets. The population of the county is 590,000, of which 21.8% are ethnic minority peoples including the Hui (62,000), Yi (44,000) and Miao (6,000).

MSI's Work in Xundian

MSI's services started at this site in 1997 with short-term medical teams, followed by English teams. We provide specialty medical, health and conversational English training to the county hospital and minority middle school. In addition student scholarships are offered to needy village children. This provides MSI with an invaluable opportunity to interact in the lives of the local people, gives the bright children a chance to continue their education and offers a ray of hope for a brighter future to their families.

Opportunities

MSI is now looking to develop Xundian as a site with a long-term team presence.

Possible platforms with local partners include:

• medical training
• English teaching and scholarships
• community health education
• micro-enterprise and
• community development projects such as livestock, water conservation, and biogas toilets.

We are looking for the following personnel to join the team :

• English teachers to teach oral English in the middle schools
• Community health trainers to impact the basic health education level of the villagers
• Livestock/Agriculture/Community development/Entrepreneurs to identify and initiate community development projects.

MSI's mission in Xundian is to be a blessing to the people so that they can, in turn, bless others in Yunnan and beyond.