“Lu Meimei” and her charity project questioned by netizens

From Xinhua Net:

Guo Meimei controversy has brought the "second generation rich" (kids of rich parents) under the spotlight and hugely damaged the public’s trust and confidence in charity organization. Lately another second generation rich who is in charge of a billion yuan project sparks controversy on the Internet.

Lu Xingyu is the daughter of a billionaire Lu Junqing. She came to netizen’s attention when a video of her making a speech on an event for the China-Africa Hope Project went viral online. The project claimed to "take 1.5 billion yuan to help build Hope primary schools in Africa within 10 years" and the 24 year-old young girl is the one in charge of the project. Inspired by the Guo Meimei controversy, netizens dubbed Lu Xingyu "Lu Meimei".

Lu Xingyu is very sociable and has met with many important politicians, including former American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Lu Xingyu and former American President George HW Bush.

Why Africa, not China?

When the video appeared online, many schools for immigrant children in Beijing were being forced to shut down, more than 30,000 students couldn’t go to school after that. That being part of the reason for people’s interest in Lu’s speech video, many people questioned Lu and her project: when China still has such a big number of poor children why do you donate such a big sum of money to Africa? Where has your patriotism gone?

In response to this question, Lu said, "When you criticize other people, you should first think what you have done. Love is without borders. What we are doing now is gaining respect for our country. The government will support us and so does the African countries."

Are they really doing a good cause or collecting money under the mask of charity?

The charity project runs the same way as the Red Cross Society, in which both extracted 10% from all donations as a management fee. Therefore, in this project the management fee Lu’s organization can get is more than 150 million.

Lu insisted in an interview that she is not doing charity for money, because she herself has donated 1 million yuan to the China-Africa Hope project and all the expense she spent on the trip to Africa is from her father’s pocket. But so far, her statement does not have strong evident to support yet.

Lu also said, her dream is to become a professional philanthropist and change the image of the children of rich parents from "second generation rich" (富二代) to "second generation humane "(仁二代).

Lu Xingyu and her father feel they are very much wronged by the netizens and obviously very pissed off by all the suspicion and criticism. Lu didn’t appreciate the nickname "Lu Meimei" and she responded to netizens’ criticism with a video clip, in which she said she is doing a good deed and didn’t deserve all these criticism. Those who criticized her should ask themselves if they ever do anything to help those in need.

On 29^th August, Lu’s father Lu Junqing posted an entry on his microblog page, offering an award of 1 million yuan for the one that’s responsible for the "Lu Meimei" controversy.