Community

We’re very much a part of our community – we contribute, we participate, and we hope we create events that improve all our lives. 

The Village People Project
Building Bathouses in Rural China to Improve the Lives and Health of Women

The Village People Project began as an idea to create sustainable organizations that would deliver a social benefit to women and children in rural China. They were not to be charities requiring constant funding by donations: instead, each organization would be nurtured and developed for the modern world of venture philanthropy where funds are allocated based on sustainable performance and tangible results.  

The Problem: High Female Suicide Rates

We began looking for possible projects and through friends, we learned of an area in China in Shaanxi province where the female suicide rate was high and living conditions poor. We investigated the area and decided to concentrate on the village of Maojiazhuang. Working with the local doctors we used physical and mental health checks as the best route to evaluate wellbeing of the local women. The checkups revealed that many of the women, who had married into the village, felt isolated and had a limited social support network. Unexpectedly, we also discovered that many women suffered from low-grade gynaecological diseases, the result of a lack of bathing facilities in Maojiazhuang which had only cold water delivered from standpipes outside the houses and which frequently froze in the very cold winters. In this province most villages don't have any bathing facilities and women would have to travel to take a shower.

The Solution: a Bathouse for the Village

The solution developed through conversations with a local social entrepreneur and the village doctors, and after many visits to the village to get a thorough understanding of the local conditions: a bathhouse for Maojiazhuang. Not only would this create a social focus point in the community for the women, it would also help reduce gynaecological disease and improve sense of wellbeing overall. Architect Ma Qingyun of MADASpam agreed to build an eco-friendly bathhouse, and our social entrepreneur, Mr Zhu Pingyu, would invest in it, and run it. Together we developed a plan for a social enterprise, which would operate on a sustainable basis and with measurable social return.

Maojiazhuang, our pioneer bathhouse, has been up and running for over two years. Over 13,000 showers have been taken. It operates profitably and the entire community has benefited, women in particular. In May, we opened our second bathhouse in nearby Xifeng. We're now working on a third location.

To Learn More ...

There's much more to the story ... the art created by the women ... the artists who visited ... the building of community and trust ...

To learn more, click here to see our brochures: Part 1 and Part 2.

For more information, email info@villagepeopleproject.org