From June 14 to 18, 2013, the Pendeba Society organized a five-day training on capacity building for local QNNP community leaders - the Pendebas. The training was held in the Pendeba Training Center in Tingri County. 10 village leaders and 10 women leaders from wetlands project-concerned villages participated in the training. In order to better conduct the training and ensure training results, we applied participatory method and open-ended forum, where participants could have free discussion and share experience and success stories with each other. 

This training has continued previous modules, aiming at promoting sustainable and participatory community development, and increasing village leaders’ capacity in ecological conservation, public health, proposal development, project monitoring and evaluation and HIV/AIDS prevention. Pendebas are mediators between the Society and communities, and also are implementers of the specific projects, representing the Pendeba Society in their respective communities. During the implementation phase and follow-up management, Pendebas are the catalysts that continuously help promote sustainable development in QNNP. 

The residents of QNNP are both protectors and stakeholders of the preserve. A better conserved QNNP cannot develop without active participation of local people. And they need to be familiar with the environment where they reside. Therefore, the Society has arranged a component to introduce QNNP in-depth to the training participants, and have them express their ideas on how to address issues and problems facing QNNP at present. The projects, implemented by the Society, such as sheep corral transformation, farmlands and wetlands conservation projects, have produced positive impact on reducing conflicts between natural resources conservation and community livelihoods development. Though traditional wetlands-block built sheep corrals are still prevailing, the Society has successfully mobilized local communities to transform traditional corrals into rock and stone-built ones. The transformed corrals are environmentally friendly and endurable. Villagers do not need repeated labor input for rebuilding/reinforcing the traditional ones. The projects have received support from local people and also attained the goal of environmental conservation. During the training, we took the projects as an entry point to explain and illustrate the importance of environmental conservation. By using actual cases and stories, it was easier for the participants to understand and raise their awareness of environmental conservation, which achieved a bottom-up conservation results.  

As the economy develops, migrant workers are increasing year by year, which increases the chances for them to get exposed to HIV/AIDS risks. Therefore, during the training, we also introduced knowledge about HIV/AIDS prevention. Most participants have little knowledge about HIV/AIDS. Two out of 20 participants have heard of HIV/AIDS prevention, and the others have never heard of the disease. It becomes significant to give introduction of HIV/AIDS prevention know-how to local villagers, and have them conduct relevant campaigns to educate more villagers about the disease. The participants discussed their strategies and steps to conduct such campaigns with the help of experts. At the end of the training, the participants have gained much knowledge about community health education and HIV/AIDS prevention. The expert also emphasized the significance of using social catalysts to address social issues, which shows the important role of social organizations in HIV/AIDS prevention and environmental conservation. 

The Second China Social Innovation Award 2012 announced its Awardees on December 22, 2012 in Beijing. After presentation and debate, based on application materials and survey report conducted by the organizers, 10 projects were conferred with China Social Innovation Award 2012, with other 14 projects as finalists. 

The Ceremony was chaired by Prof. He from China Central Compilation & Translation Bureau. Deputy Director of the Bureau, Mr. YU Keping, and Deputy Director of Civil Organization Administration Bureau, Mr. LIU Zhenguo addressed on the ceremony. Around 200 representatives from government, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Normal University, awardee organizations, and other organizations attended the ceremony. From the start of the Award program in July 2012 to the deadline of the submission on September 30, 2012, the organizer has received 249 applications from 30 regions and provinces across China. And the project submitted by the Pendeba Society, “Pendeba Nature Conservation and Community Development” has won an excellence award. Tsering Norbu, Executive Director of the Society went to Beijing on behalf of the Society to present the project and received the Award. 

“China Social Innovation Award aims to discover and encourage innovated actions to address social issues, meet social needs, create social values and promote social progress,” said Mr. YU, “and it can draw lessons from and disseminate good practices of China’s social innovation, and promote social fairness and good governance. This Award has attached great attention from across the nation and receives support from the civil affairs departments and social organizations.” 

The QNNP is known as the Third Pole of the Earth, and it is freezing cold during the winter. In order to warm up QNNP's school children in winter, the Pendeba Society has applied to the Snoopy Love Foundation and was donated 2000 winter coats, 2000 scarfs, 300 sweaters and 200 hats, which were distributed to 2000 more poor school children in QNNP's four counties. To ensure fair distribution, the Society has consulted with local governments and communities to identify the most needing villages and schools to receive the donation. During the course of the distribution, the Society was in charge of transportation, distribution and outreach activities of the donated clothes. We also invited local TV to report the event to make it more known across the region. In the meantime, we also updated our project via various channels including Weibo to ensure a trustful and faire distribution.

Representatives from the Foundation were invited to join the distribution event, and they expressed their continued support to the project. In the later days, with local stakeholders, the Society organized distribution activities in the identified schools, and gave the clothes in the hands of school children. Because the project covered a large area, and the Society was monitoring the whole event, the project lasted for 2 months. The Society visited each identified schools and gave the clothes, and made detailed donation record. According to the types of the donated clothes, we identified the villages and number of school children to form a donation list. With each school's location and we decided the time to distribute the clothes among nearby villages. Each child was given a winter coat and scarf, while for poorer children; they were given a hat and sweater more. After the distribution, we also collected all the package trash to set examples for students to care about the environment.

By Jan 6, 2013, with help from local government and communities, the donated winter cloths were successfully distributed. The work was highly recognized by local people and governments. Concerned villagers and children also got to know the Pendeba Society better, and it helped us gain more support from the communities in our future projects. In the meantime, the Society also took chances to conduct need assessment with local government and village leaders to gather information for our future projects.

On August 28, 2012, staff of the Pendeba Society went on a survey to Zhaguo Town of Tingri County to identify project site where conventional sheep corrals will be transformed. After consulting with local township officials, not only had we received support from local government, we also got to know the villages that have large areas of conventional sheep corrals needed to be transformed. We surveyed some of the villages including Zhaguo, Jialong, Meimu, and Chaga Villages, and identified two project sites, namely Meimu and Chaga, where there are urgent needs to transform their conventional sheep corrals. 

In the morning, accompanied by village chiefs of Meimu, we went to the riverside to examine the sheep corrals, during which we introduced our project and the importance of wetlands, we also got to know there are 18 sheep corrals in the village that require transformation. Though some of the corrals have been transformed into ones half-stone and half-earth brick, they still need reinforcement. Nonetheless, many sheep corrals are still constructed conventionally by digging out wetland earth blocks, and they are collapsing due to poor maintenance. After consulting with village chiefs and listening to their needs, we have designed a project plan that owners of the corrals provide labor for corral transformation while the Pendeba Society provides materials such as winter fabric covering the corrals so that they can provide better protection for livestock to get through cold winter. In the meantime, we also came out with an incentive plan that those who do a good job in the project will be rewarded after the final evaluation. This will also motivate villagers, and help achieve the results in a successful manner. The project will transform 18 sheep corrals, from which over 400 villagers and 4600 livestock will benefit. 

In the afternoon, we went on to the other village, Chaga. In the course of talking with village chiefs, we also introduced our visit and project, and consulted about the village’s needs. The chiefs were all in favor of our projects, and stated their needs, i.e., building a watercourse that feeds water into hillside farmlands behind the village for irrigation during spring sowing season. Due to unfavorable climate and geological conditions, this area faces floods during the raining season, while the sandy soil cannot hold water from wellspring in mountains. Together with lacking of irrigation infrastructures, they impose negative impacts on the village’s agricultural production. During the spring sowing season in particular, there is less rain and the sandy soil will have absorbed the water from wellspring before it reaches the farmland, causing water shortage for irrigation.

Though there are irrigation infrastructures and a large reservoir under construction near the village, it still needs more funds for the village to build a watercourse that can feeds water into small reservoirs near the hillside farmlands. Also, summer floods can be better controlled and channeled off to the large reservoir for storage, providing water for the farmlands downstream. And the staff of the Pendeba Society did a survey to the hillside farmlands, and together with the village chiefs carefully planed the project. Finally, we agreed to transform 10 conventional sheep corrals while building a irrigation watercourse for the village’s hillside farmlands. This project will ensure irrigation water for around 100 mu (around 6.7 ha) farmlands to safeguard agricultural production, and transform conventional sheep corrals to protect wetlands, from which over 260 villagers and 3000 livestock will benefit. 

We truly appreciate the generous support from LAO NIU Foundation, while in the meantime, we also thank Zhaguo Government and concerned communities for their continued support and cooperation on these projects.