New Path Foundation

Accompany Lives with Love, by cultivating and supporting long term one-on-one volunteer services.

This private foundation was endowed by American citizens, Randolph and Susan Yeh, in 1999. Its main aim is to cultivate ‘volunteerism’ – the voluntary giving of time and social service – especially in China and Africa. The founders believe that this can “change many lives for the better, facilitate volunteers in realising self-development and growth, and create more caring and harmonious communities around us.”

In China, New Path has supported activities to mobilise and train groups of volunteers to visit and befriend people living in state retirement homes and other social welfare institutions. It has also backed a scheme of volunteer support for poor families with disabled parents.

In addition, New Path has contributed to the costs of a journal, Volunteering and Welfare, published by a Research Centre for Volunteering and Welfare attached to Beijing University.

New Path has provided start-up assistance to help new Chinese NGOs to become established. Along with modest funding support, the foundation has offered NGO clients temporary, rent-free loan of office space, including the use of meeting rooms and equipment; capacity building training, and assistance with fundraising.

Current New Path projects include; the Friendship in Sunset project, where volunteers visit an old age home every two weeks and accompany an elder without children or elders without children in the same city. Another current project is the Big Friend project, where volunteers visit same sex, first year middle school youths in disadvantaged situations in the city. Or volunteers write a monthly letter to a same sex, first year middle school youth in remote country villages, and make a yearly visit to their home.

New Path is also in the process of setting up a support center for long-term accompaniment services.