Roots and Refuge

Bordering Myanmar in Southwest China's Yunnan Province lies a quiet village inhabited by the Jingpo people. Most families there grow rice and sugarcane and live below the poverty line. The area, Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, is afflicted by drug trafficking, crime and HIV/AIDS. Living in a complex and troubled social environment, children have few prospects for a better future.

To improve their chances at education, lawyer Li Yang and her husband Anton Lustig, a Dutch ethnolinguist, started the “Prop Roots Program” in 2009, a non-profit organization benefitting Jingpo children. Lustig has studied the language and culture of the Jingpo in China for 30 years. He is the first scholar to record their endangered language, Zaiwa. Lustig said he is “a Jingpo man who was born in the Netherlands by chance.”

Prop Roots was named after an old Banyan tree sacred to the Jingpo village. In 2011, the couple settled there and poured their savings into building a large center for the program.

The center offers free courses, including art, music, writing and creativity, and organizes activities such as camping and study tours. Over 200 children have attended classes at the center. Thirty live there as semi-adoptees. The center covers 90 percent of their living costs and provides them with care.

“Good education means helping children in different situations overcome fear and take control of their own lives. We want to wipe away the dust that once covered these crystals and let the beautiful stone underneath shine with its own brilliance,” Li said.

1. Li Yang and Anton Lustig stand with Jingpo children under a big Banyan tree 2. The warm glow from Prop Roots creates a peaceful feeling at night 3. Children participate in an activity at night

1.Children play games during an English Camp at the center 2. Boys from Prop Roots perform in their breakdance crew Unique Boys during the China leg of global breakdance competition Battle of the Year, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, May 3, 2017 3. Volunteer Sun Nongyang teaches local children hip-hop dance steps 4. Children use colorful thick thread to stitch the name “Prop Roots” on a blackboard. Now the board hangs in front of the center 5. Li and Lustig 6. Li discusses her design with builders on the site of the center in 2011 7. Three young Jingpo men, who received training at Prop Roots when they were boys, work as professional chefs in a nearby city. They often return home to cook for fellow villagers