Mosuo women in Yunnan. Photo: CFP

By Liu Xuan

Every year the Rotary Club of Beijing (RCB) sends a check to the Lugu Lake area, located on the border of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, so that around 30 Mosuo students are able to continue their education.

The Mosuo, one of China's smallest, and most underprivileged, ethnic groups, live in a mountainous region located on the northwestern corner of Yunnan Province, adjacent to Tibet. Some 50,000 Mosuo live near Lugu Lake, where the average way of life revolves around outdated agrarian farming techniques.

RCB, a Beijing based charity organization consisting mainly of businessmen, was introduced to the needy Mosuo students by a Yunnan based NGO, Lugu Lake Mosuo Cultural Development Association (LLMCDA). And those doing the connecting are Young Rotarian, Swiss Christopher Mueller and the invisible founder of LLMCDA Canadian John Lombard.

Mueller introduced John Lombard to Rotary Club members, and invited him to a Tuesday charity lunch to brief the RCB after he heard about the Mosuo projects and Lombard from a friend.

With a tradition of supporting children in need by providing financial, educational, medical, or spiritual support, the RCB embraced the Mosuo people with its support, and established a donation channel with LLMCDA.

The LLMCDA, registered as a Yunnan NGO in 2004, is the first independent charity run completely by the Mosuo. After living in China for 15 years working on teaching English, journalism and cross-cultural consulting, Lombard founded LLMCDA after randomly choosing to travel to Lugu Lake for a summer vacation in 2004.

During his stay, he lived as the Mosuo still do, staying with an adoptive family in a cottage, and witnessing the real life of the Mosuo people. Lombard saw the three major threats facing the Mosuo way of life: Children in poverty, traditional Mosuo culture being lost and forgotten, and an inordinate number of Mosuo women falling to prey to zouhun ("walking marriage") prostitution schemes, which is a Mosuo tradition where a Mosuo man walks to the home of a woman and spends the night, and returns to his own home in the morning.

Six months after his trip, Lombard began LLMCDA, joining disparate projects designed to help the plights of the Mosuo people.

"All decisions are made by Mosuo themselves," said Lombard. "I just help LLMCDA raise funds for their projects."

In five years , LLMCDA has been credited with successfully preventing eight Mosuo girls from becoming prostitutes by teaching them handicrafts. While the RCB continues sponsoring Mosuo students, other projects, like the Mosuo Language Project, are still waiting for funds just to get off the ground.

The aim of the language project is the creation of a written language for the local Mosuo language. Mosuo oral history records are facing extinction as an older generation is beginning to die out. Hopes among LLMCDA workers are high that the Mosuo language, with the help of its own written language, can help preserve irreversible lose of their people's unique history and culture.

liuxuan@globaltimes.com.cn