Angel’s Teaching Evaluation

Angel shares her two weeks teaching English in Yunnan:

At first I thought the target who benefitted from this teaching trip would be the students, however, at the end of the day I realized that the volunteers and I were the ones who gained the most. Throughout the teaching trip, I went to the school every day to teach different classes English ranging from Grade 8 to 9. I tried to think of some interactive ways to get them more involved in the class. We would play games such as Hangman and Pictionary. These were to add some fun elements into the class when teaching new vocabularies.

I really admire their pureness and simplicity. They could find happiness even in littlest things. They really liked it if I gave them candies whenever the students won the game. It was exciting to see how students got crazy over those little treats. Laughter was filled in every corner of the classroom. It made my day to look at their smiley faces.

Sometimes the winners would flaunt the number of candies they got from the game at the end of the lesson. The other classmates would playfully tease back which made the atmosphere absolutely funny. I am definitely not encouraging the action of boasting, however, all I could see from those scenes were true friendship. They were proud of each other and did not take those competitions too seriously.

I grew up in a competitive learning environment where classmates often compared their academic results. I feel very pleased to see the strong bond they had with each other. They knew each other very well in a way that they would show support and care from the bottom of their heart to their classmates who were in need.

I remember I asked them to tell me about their dreams on the first day we met. I was truly amazed by their strong will to pursue their dreams. Many of them had a clear picture of what they wanted to achieve in the future. Few of them wanted to be an engineer, hence they asked me a lot of related questions. I discovered that their determination was stronger than what I imagined. I would say we could never underestimate and look down on a teen’s potential.

Those students living in rural areas are our precious treasure with enormous potential. They are like diamonds, looking ordinary from the outside before the cutting process. However, once they are converted to gems, no one could ever resist their attraction. Every day they are waiting for an opportunity for them to shine. I hereby would like to send my sincere wishes to them and hope they could succeed one day.

August’s Teaching Experiences

Having spent two weeks in Ciying Middle School where he taught English to a class of year 8 students, August shares his experience with us:

What are my thoughts after this amazing experience? It would have to be that I have learned so much from the students and from those who were with me throughout this journey. Yes, we DID bring knowledge and the outside world to the kids at Ciying but they had shown and taught ME immense courage and positive attitude towards life.
For the friends who are there for me when I was sick and when things got a bit tough, they had given me limitless care and support for which I can’t tell you guys how much I am grateful for. Overall, I what to say thank you to the students and the whole team and hopefully I can see you guys again in the future.

我在这次经历之后的感想啊？那我最大的收获就是从学生们和伴我左右的同学们那里学到的东西吧。的确，我们给了茨营的孩子们带去了知识和茨营以外的世界，但是他们展现出并且教会了我对于生活巨大的勇气和积极的态度。
我无法形容我有多么感激那些在我生病时照顾我，在事情变得有些困难时给予我帮助的朋友们。最后，我想对学生们和整个团队说声感谢，希望以后还可以见到你们。

上课 — 原来教课真的很难
来到茨营中学之前，我对于学生们的英语水平没有很高的期待。因为听孙老师说他们初一才开始学习英语，所以我也就理所当然地认为初三的学生也就是小学三年级的水平。但是到了这里我才发现有的学生的英语水平比我想象的高得多。还有一点值得注意的是班与班之间，学生与学生之间的英语水平差距很大。有些同学可以理解我所说英语的大部分，还有些同学只能理解到最基本的内容。当我看到很多学生对于英语有很大热情只是学的不够好所以打击到他们的积极性时，我决定要从最基本的教起 — 听和说。这也是我在最初学英语时进步的方法。

每节课之前我和同伴Jessica都会带着大家朗读一遍这个单元的课后单词。先是把所有单词都读一遍，然后再读一遍重点单词，最后把每一个单词拆开成一个一个的“音节”然后慢慢读“音节”。重点是把每个“音节”都读清楚了就组成了这个单词，单词自然也就会读了。当同学们把每一个单词听我们读3遍，自己也读了3遍以后，他们对于一个单词也有了最基本的掌握。并且，当同学们把每一个单词拆成一个一个“音节”读时，他们对于这个单词的拼写能力也有了提高。

上课时，当我们讲完一些内容时，我们都会问同学们有没有什么问题，我们也非常鼓励他们问问题。如果有一些他们不太理解的地方，我们会把那个知识点慢慢分解开再讲一遍。为了调动课堂积极性，从备课开始，Jessica和我用PPT把教科书上的内容融入一些我们的经历或者有趣的内容。并且把重点放在文章的阅读和句子的理解上面。我们鼓励同学们用自己所学的英语说出他们知道的一切，课堂气氛越活跃，新的内容对于学生越有吸引力，这样他们才能更好地接受新的知识。甚至有一节课，Jessica和我对于勇于发言回答问题的同学以糖的形式发了奖励。Jessica和我还加入了一个联想游戏的环节来启发同学们的想象力，并且连带着复习了他们所学过的单词。

交流 — 与同学面对面的谈心
其实2周的时间不是很多，同学们没有非常深入地和我们聊天。但是Jessica和我对其中几个家庭背景特殊的同学做了家访，发现他们都是积极乐观的，并没有像我想象中的消极和自闭，反而，他们都肯与Jessica和我说出他们对于学习的困惑。他们对于学习的热情及渴望，和对于生活阳光的态度是我意料之外的。他们真的把我们当作朋友，或者至少是精神上的寄托，跟我们讨论他们对于一些事情的看法。也可能是尊重隐私的原因，Jessica和我并没有过多的去问他们的家庭和经济情况，只是跟他们聊了一些他们感兴趣的话题。最令我触动的是孙老师告诉我一个我们班的同学的梦想就是去大理找他妈妈。当一个学生连亲情都没有时，他怎么还能专心学习？许多同学又十分内向，心里装着很多话和想法没法和人沟通。我们尽可能地让他们敞开心声，然后通过各种渠道帮助同学们。

上课时，当我们给他们讲一些词以及延伸的国外的见闻时，他们眼神中所流露出的羡慕，兴奋和向往都在和我们述说着他们对于外面世界的渴望。临走之前，有几个同学还给了Jessica和我他们自己写的信。信中表达的他们对于我们支教的欣喜，感谢和不舍使Jessica和我感到欣慰因为我们至少给他们带来了外面的世界，让他们对于生活有了更多的认识和期盼。唯一遗憾的是最后同学们管Jessica和我要联系方式，我没有QQ也暂时没有国内手机号所以我就把我的电子邮件给了他们，希望他们可以和我联系。每个同学似乎都有话想对我们或者他人说，可是两周的时间不够，只能用这样的方式与他们保持联系。

相处 — 一起走过14天的点点滴滴
几个以前完全不认识的陌生人聚在了一起，给他们一个共同的目标或任务，那么他们就能成为无话不谈的朋友。这就是这次经历给我的感受。我们虽然都是墨大的学生，可在这之前我除了一个人外其他人完全不认识。现在回想起来，除了和同学们在一起，其他时间都是和一同来的志愿者一起的。大家互相照料，鼓励，学习。最好的例子就是我病倒的时候，大家一直关心我，照顾我，给我买药。其中一个志愿者Longker把他的所有药都给了大家，自己病倒的时候还的去上街买药。病得轻的就照顾病得重的。

晚上，所有人一起备课，讨论今天每个人的进度以及同学们的接受程度。每个人还得和自己一班的另一名志愿者讨论明天的课怎么上，哪些内容可以引进，哪些内容可以用更有趣的方式让同学们接受。把所有总结的内容做成PPT或者列一个提纲下节课用。完了聊一聊今天的趣事之后大家就回各自的房间了。我们几个男生一个房间，所以晚上还会聊聊墨大的生活。每个人都把自己关于学习，生活的一切说出来。而我有幸是大一，其他人都至少是大二，所以晚上通常是我向他们“取经”的最好时刻。最后往往是在大家的欢笑中睡去的。感觉每一天过得很慢，因为有很多事情；一转眼两周过去了，但想一想都能记起每一个细节。

文化 — 家长们对于上学的误区
文化上的差异不大，但最主要的差异要算是对于上学的认知。许多同学家里还有哥哥或姐姐。如果最大的孩子在上高中或大学而家里却供不起另外的孩子，那么家长们则选择尽量供着最大的孩子，意味着可能家里其他孩子上完初中就要辍学帮家里干活了（因为国家是九年义务教育，许多家庭交不起高中学费）。甚至有的家庭，即使供得起，但如果孩子初中毕业成绩不好，上不了好的高中，那么家长就让他们直接去职高，然后毕业直接找工作。一个普遍的观点是：大学毕业也没什么用，还是找不到工作。所以家长都把同学们拉回家里干农活。这或许是许多同学不100%努力学习的一个原因。还有一些原因比如父母都在其他地方打工，学生的作业，成绩没有人督促。或者学生家庭背景很复杂（父母离异或变故），而没有人去过问学生们真正的感受。

其他 — 多姿多彩的生活
先说说食物吧。所有的吃的都放辣椒。虽然我以前能吃辣，但是在澳洲呆了3年多以后对于云南的菜实在是不敢下咽。没有夸张，任何菜，连鸡蛋西红柿也可以放辣椒。不过真的很好吃，比如家常的小炒肉，菌类，菇类。因为我们住的是当地的旅馆，还有几个人不能吃辣，所以跟老板说了一声，以后菜里的辣椒少多了。一天三餐的伙食费最多￥40（因为我们点的菜）。同学们吃的就没我们好了，很多时候就是辣椒，咸菜，青菜和米饭（有时有肉）。有时候食堂卖加份的菜但是吃不饱的同学基本上都不舍得买。

我们志愿者的住宿还可以，每人一张床，也不贵，一晚就￥15。被子，褥子，毯子什么的都齐全。可是同学们住的都是学生宿舍，一个小小的屋子里挤满了床，而且都是上下铺。没有暖气或风扇。同学们每人也就有一条被子（云南冬天一条被子真的不够）。平时同学们的保暖衣服也不够，没有几个人有棉衣的，都是多套几件秋衣御寒。

零零散散：
•跟着孙老师到了一个叫红土墙的彝族村。看到了彝族特有的服饰，听了关于火把节的介绍。孙老师还兴奋地说下次来参加他们的节日。
•去了一个幼儿园，给小孩子们上了两堂绘画课。诧异地发现有的小朋友会的英语比初中同学还要多。
•去了一个小学，给同学们介绍了自己在澳洲的照片。知道了几乎所有人都能考上我们去的茨营中学，心里感到很欣慰。
•家访了我们班一个女生的家，给了她孙老师给她准备的衣服和我们准备的一些文具。进到客厅觉得这家应该很富，可是其他任何一个屋子里什么都没有（除了几个屋子里各有一张床）。后来从孙老师那里才知道房子可能是以后结婚留着的所以外面和客厅很好，花费也都在上面。

Teaching Trip to Yunnan

Last December, a group of 7 enthusiatic CREI members packed their bags and flew to the beautiful city of Kunming. From there, it was an hour bus ride to the town where they would be teaching at the local high school, Ciying Middle School, for the next two weeks.

More photos and reflections by our volunteers to come!

Launch Event

On Thursday August 16th China Rural Education Initiative had its offical Launch! To kick off the night, our President, Irene, gave a passionate speech about our cause. Each of our functional teams then talked about their roles within the group and shared their goals for the semester with our new members. To end the presentations, we played a heart warming video telling the stories of five children from Yunnan. Following on from that, we had a networking session, and it was fantastic to see so many people that share our passion.
Thank you to all those who took their time to attend our event, we look forward to seeing you at our next event, The MUOSS Festival of Nations on August 29th-30th at 11am-3pm at The University of Melbourne Parkville campus, Northcourt. We will be selling Taiwanese sausages and hot milk tea!

Once again thank you everyone for your support!

Here is the link to the video if anyone is interested:
http://vimeo.com/m/5629146

Background on Yunnan

There is currently 9 years of free compulsory education in China until the age of 14. In 2009, the education chief of Yunnan announced plans to extend this period to 13 years by 2020. There are already schools in Yunnan which offer this pilot program (there are also schools in some other provinces such as Guangdong and Shandong). At present, 6 million students are enrolled in Yunnan’s 22, 000 primary and middle schools (Yunnan has a population of 46 million).

Yunnan is very multi-ethnic, with 51 ethnicities in its population. This presents as a barrier to the education system, particularly elementary education. Children are taught in Mandarin Chinese and language (and cultural) differences are quick to emerge. Enrolment for the early primary years are high amongst ethnic communities are initially high, but a high number dropout due to poor learning of Chinese (the medium of education). Another factor contributing to the dropout numbers would be Yunnan’s poverty (the average annual income for farmers is 2000 RMB/year); children are often viewed as more ‘useful’ when helping out with the family than at school.

However, in the past decade, international groups have introduced changes of a small to moderate magnitude to primary education in Yunnan. One such group is the East Asia Group (EAG) which implemented its ‘Zero Barrier Multilingual Education’ concept amongst select schools.

The concept aims to increase the educational achievement attained by ethnic minorities. Children from ethnic minorities are taught for two years in their mother tongue in pre-school before transitioning to being instructed in Chinese in Grade 1 (reading and writing; there is some speaking at pre-school level). Classes in their mother tongue are also continued; the teaching of the minority groups’ traditions and culture are also fostered. Children must be fluent in their mother tongue before being to proceed to instruction in Mandarin Chinese. These model education centres have been met with success so far, although it must be noted there is significant investment required; the style of teaching, teaching materials, educational environment, etc. are different to the typical Chinese classroom.

Larger scaled improvements to education have been in place at the adult education level for several decades. There have been numerous part-time schools established offering intensive courses, encouraging adults and those who live in more remote areas to receive a basic level of education. These enable those who work (~52% of the population) gain literacy without leaving their jobs. Despite these efforts, the illiteracy rate in Yunnan is still between an estimated 10-15%.

Angel’s teaching experience in China

Target
I visited a primary school in Luoding Shi which is in Guangdong for 1 week in 2010, teaching a class of 30 Grade 6 students English. My team mates and I designed a series of teaching plan which includes games, music and competitions. We started off every English lesson with a new simple English song. I would ask all of them to stand up and form a circle with hands holding together to create a warm and friendly atmosphere. Sometimes we would also add actions to the songs to further strengthen their memory.

Impressive Moments
Many of the students turned out to be pretty good at English. When designing the teaching plan, our team planned to give them a revision on the first lesson and for the following lessons we would teach them simple English vocabularies. However we found out at the revision class that most of them were good enough to speak simple English words. Therefore we quickly made changes in the teaching plan to fit the scenario at that time. The plan turned out to be very successful as all the students enjoyed having English lessons with us. Most importantly, they really learnt some useful English from all these activities.

Benefits of Students
I think the students understood that learning can be fun at the end of our program. Under the rural area education system, students have no choice but to sit in the classroom passively. Due to their living environment, most of them are not able to get access to the internet to listen to English songs and cannot afford buying CDs. Hence it is a whole new experience for them to have a chance to study English in this playful way so I think the program had definitely raised their interest in English. This trip also stimulated them to think of things that can make learning more interesting regardless of their living condition. For example, doing role play with classmates in English is one of the fun ways to enjoy themselves after class without spending money.

Benefits of Myself
I have learnt to appreciate everyone’s talent after seeing all the students are so gifted. Despite of their poor living condition, I can still see many of them strike hard and hope one day they could get out of the rural areas and follow their dreams. I believe that everyone deserves to have equal rights, that is why I keep encouraging them not to give up easily and should always keep up this spirit. I also try to give them positive energy by praising their good English. It motivates me to participate in more volunteer teaching every time I saw their cheerful faces as I feel like I have influenced them to think positive and optimistically.

Methods And Approaches
Before playing games or starting an activity in each lesson, our team would usually gave a briefing to the students to let them know the instructions. Our strategy is wish to create a comfortable atmosphere hence we would ask the students to sit in pairs to make them feel they are not having a formal lesson. However, this might lead to a problem that they kept chit-chatting and ignored the class. We then came up with an idea of setting up a scoring system. Marks will be deducted for those who are not paying attention while students who are participating well in class will be rewarded.
The other approach that I used to make them feel relax is to invite them to write on the whiteboard or blackboard. They usually got very excited about that because only teachers are allowed to write on the board during normal school days.
Drawing is another essential method to get the children enjoy the lesson. I would then suggest colour pencils as a perfect prize for those who win a class competition.

Children of Shambala

In August 2005 Jan Terje Voilaas returned to Norway after bicycling around the world – 43.000 kilometers through 35 countries. He went straight back to work as a financial director, but found it difficult to settle back into normal Norwegian life. He resigned, wrote a book and headed out into the world again, this time to end up in northern Yunnan Province. Shortly after he founded Children of Shambala (CoS), a small non-political, non-religious NGO that is now registered as an independent foundation.

Work done to day

Since 2006, CoS has planned, financed and implemented around 115 small scale development projects in remote parts of China’s western regions, most of them in Qinghai Province.

Using approximate figures, achieved so far:

• 5,000 people and approximately 25,000 livestock have been supplied with clean water

• 18,000 present and 18,000 future primary school students have been supplied with reading books, study materials and sports equipment

• 4,000 primary school students have received warm winter clothes and shoes

• 4,000 boarding school students have received 3-in-one hygienic food boxes and other hygiene equipment

• 3,500 first grade students have been equipped with school starter packages

• 1,000 primary school students have received important additional teaching in English and Chinese

• 70 young minority teachers have been helped to find their first paid job experience

• 30 students have been helped financially through high school and university

• Several hundred poor families have been supplied with solar cookers, solar power generating sets, threshing machines and milk churns

In addition, they have:

• Established a substantial contact network of individuals, institutions and government bodies particularly in China but also in Norway. Around 400 Norwegian families are now supporting CoS in different ways.

• Gained substantial relevant experience through living and working for more than five years in China’s western regions

CoS Fellowship Program

The Shambala Fellowship Program is for people interested in working in Asia on behalf of COS and OWW. It’s an innovative program looking to supplant the program fees typical of these kinds of programs. Instead, COS seeks applicants who demonstrate an enthusiasm for fundraising on behalf of the children in the OWW program. All Fellows accepted into the program will have all expenses paid by COS and receive a monthly stipend.
The Shambala Fellowship Program has the following two goals:

1) Recruit and train outstanding candidates as Shambala Fellows to work with humanitarian organizations in a developing country in Asia.

2) Help as many orphans out of poverty as possible. We work with local communities to help children, who have lost one or both of their parents, and their foster families out of poverty through education.

Orphanage Without Walls (OWW)

OWW is a longterm project targeting, supporting and helping the poorest and most vulnerable orphans to grow up in a stable family situation in their local community while pursuing their highest possible level of education and/or vocational training. The ultimate goal for each individual orphan is for her/him to get her/his first paid job.

OWW combines local foster homes with direct financial and human support involving the orphan, the foster family, schools and the local NGO affiliate.

OWW is a cost effective and target-oriented project helping orphans and foster families out of poverty through education. OWW has so far proven to be surprisingly efficient. OWW represents an immense contact network and a strong platform for a variety of supplementary projects producing direct results while also strengthening OWW.

By late 2011 OWW involved almost 600 orphans and 2500 foster family members.

Form more information, visit http://childrenofshambala.org/home/

Siyuan Commonweal Organization

Seven years ago, a group of student volunteers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University stepped into Qing Yang, a penurious but promising land in Gansu Province, bringing with them a dream that waited to be bred. “Flying the hope, we help with the grassroots education. Never forgetting where all the sweetness came from, we focus on the rural development.” From their simple but sincere words, we can easily feel the passion of the students to help develop the rural area and the education.

It is the passion that enables the small group with only more than ten students develop into an organization named Siyuan Commonweal Organization that have built 7 local libraries in 5 counties of 4 provinces, with 500 volunteer teachers and 2000 students so far.

This is their story:

Summer Vacation Education Support Programme

We gathered together for the same dream of supporting education. We once again headed together towards a new direction, to the rural parts. Every minute is filled with happy memories and touching moments during our teaching time together in Gansu Yigang, Miaoqu, Sancha, Maqu; Henan Xiuwu; Zhejiang Lishui; Chongqing Shiyan. It is really a wonderful thing that we spend time together in those hot summers.

The Education Support Team has had a history of seven years since 2004 when it set up. The growing of the team has full filled the past seven-year-history. Members of the team have left us too many treasures from their experiences every year.

Teaching English is always our main action. We are continuing exploring new zones and trying our best to use various teaching methods. The most important thing is to open children’s eyes and develop their thinking methods. As well as we put our heart in updating the teaching methods so that rural children can have more future pathways under our education support. There are about 800 students in a total of 16 classes who participate in our team and some of them even come the whole way along from Ningxia and Inner Mongolia. We have given a total of 1764 hours of teaching period. In addition, the English teaching period is up to 977 hours, the main courses teaching period is up to 425 hours and the activity period is up to 296 hours. There is a total of 88 hours of discussion competitions, reading competitions, drama competitions and so on. Each student has received 27.5 hours of teaching period in average.

Our motivation is children’s dreams of their wonderful future and their eager of knowledge. The Education Support Programme is going on and on with our promise which is we would not give up in any chances to improve the rural education condition. These new starting points are all setting under our real thoughts of helping children in the rural parts.

Library Programme

It is a really big problem for most of the rural children that they are lack of books. They do not have many chances to read books. Only several extra-curricular books or magazines can be passed around among students an entire semester. However, there are books about different areas and even some of the very old ones can be through away or sales as waste paper for us. Have you ever considered that some of them might help the rural children to get to know the world outside and open their eyes or even make them gain the ability to change their lives?

The main point of our Siyuan Books Programme is books. Books will be shipped to the places which is lack of books with informs of the service location. We hope that Siyuan libraries will be built with collaboration in the places which is really lack of books under our efforts and various reading activities will be held within the libraries. This is done for children and set up a relationship for them to education. Meanwhile, it is also done for developing children’s reading habits.

Sponsored by British BP Company and Eaton Company, we have built Siyuan libraries for schools in Sancha, Miaoqu, Xiuwu, Baihelin since 2007. 3 communities, 19 schools, 2 libraries, 2 publishing companies and many kind individuals have donated thousands of books to Siyuan libraries these few years. We conduct surveys at these libraries during the teaching period in each summer holiday to get to know how well do they run. At the same time, we organise many fun activities which are based on reading. Such as extracting good words and sentences, sharing a good book, and reciting competition. We aim to create a curious atmosphere among students.

Images from http://siyuan.sjtu.edu.cn

China Tomorrow Education Foundation

China Tomorrow Education Foundation (CTEF) is operated by a group of dedicated volunteers. They are mostly full time employees that already facing a tough job balancing a busy life and highly pressured work. Still, they come together to work towards a greater goal to help the needed and give back to the society. CTEF has a long tradition to closely monitor the school renovation project and visit the schools that have been built in various developing stages.

Although CTEF is a Seattle based non-profit organization and most of volunteers are based in the US, a significant part of our operation is in China, and they are counting on the hard working Chinese local volunteers and many other NGO partners. From “5.12 pen-pal project”, to the 1+1 Student Sponsorship program and recently the Teacher Award program, many of their projects are labor intensive. Each stage in these projects requires volunteers to send out initial survey forms, contact every individual involved to explain and follow up.

An old school building – one of CTEF’s projects

School building rebuilt by volunteers

CTEF’s volunteers go beyond the Chinese community. Mr. Jannick B. Pedersen is a Danish. He is now an advisor to CTEF on their strategic direction. Jannick flew from Denmark to Seattle visited CTEF volunteers in September 2010, helped them to formulate the third important element of the 1+1 program – help students grow wisdom through donors and volunteers interaction with students.

From 2004-2009, CTEF has sponsored 17 schools in Gansu, China with total donation of 186M RMB ($30M). And amazingly, local communities are greatly influenced by CTEF activities that they are supporting the education effort as well.

For example, CTEF donated limited funds to XiLiuZhuang Elementary School. At the same time, couple of local families donated more than 10k RMB ($1.6k) as well as time and labor to build a new roof for the school.

An old school in Guping, Guizhou

The school rebuilt by CTEF

JiuZhi Elementary is a boarding school with more than 200 residents. While CTEF was building the school facilities, local communities donated more than 20k RMB ($3.3k) for 5 dorms. When the builder company knew that this was for education investment, it also reduced its price for the project and expressed desire to support future school projects.

Can you believe that in many schools in remote and poor regions of China, students don’t have one single book to read except the textbook?

In that context, every extra-curriculum book is opening a new world to the students. And CTEF has been doing so to help open the world one after another. Starting in 2008 with the partnership with the Our Free Sky (an non-for-profit org with similar mission), CTEF has donated over 20,000 books to 9 school libraries in Sichuan, Hunan and Yunnan provinces, helping 3656 students.

Maria and James Koh are CTEF’s first couple donors. During the Japan-China War, Maria served as a volunteer “Little Teacher” to the refugee kids. This experience convinced her that education is the foundation of self-assurance. James also believes that higher education means better use of one’s wisdom and empowers one with life time fulfillment. The couple was impressed by the dedication and commitment of CTEF founders. They consecutively donated to CTEF and helped to build schools and improved school facilities for teachers and students in poor areas.

Library books donated by the Kohs

In 10 years, CTEF has grown significantly but they have carried on these early beliefs. The Kohs are also the founders of the library project. With Waisiu’s help, they published three volumes of colorful bilingual children story books with accompanying CDs. CTEF distributed about 5000 copies a year freely to children in rural area.

CTEF not only provide financial help to students, but also encourage donors to communicate with students and provide mental help.

This is a good example of this effort. She is a high school student in Hubei province. Both parents have chronic disease and the family has low income. She is a good student and won English and composition competition. CTEF gave her financial aid through 1+1 program.

Letter from a student to her donor

When communicating with donor, she mentioned that she had difficulty in math study. The donor encouraged her and gave her some suggestions based on her situation. Her math improved quite a bit in several months.

This is what her mother wrote to donor: ‘She did not do well in math last semester. Her teacher told me she was very sad after she knew her math grade. Luckily she felt better when she came back from school several days ago and worked harder, especially math study. She told me that you encouraged her in email and taught her how to study math. She was very thankful and told me she would do her best to catch up. ’

The student told her donor several months later: ‘My math has improved and I know its importance now. I am motivated and I will keep on my effort.’

Background on our cause

China is the second largest economy in the world, a country whose urban areas are witnessing an expanding middle class, with many beginning to enjoy lifestyles of luxury and excess. There is, however another side of the story- the country is also facing an ever-widening rural-urban income gap. Amidst its glorious growth, many of China’s rural citizens are being left behind, with some unable to afford even running water.

The children living in rural parts of China are the ones who must bear the brunt of the country’s increasing inequality. As many parents, in hope of providing a better life for their families, leave poverty stricken agricultural towns and villages to find work in the city, their sons and daughters are often left behind. Those who follow their parents to city areas are treated like second-class citizens and are prohibited by government policy from entering urban schools. They are forced to attend shabby, poorly funded migrant-worker schools on the city fringe. Facing limited wages and rising inflation, many families cannot even afford to send their children to school. In rural areas, teachers are paid little and quality instruction is hard to come by. In some areas, there are no schools at all, and in many more, there are no books to read apart from tatty hand-me-down books.

This educational disadvantage translates into another obstacle in finding employment for these children in a country where many graduates are unemployed. Without the resources, rural children will become adults who lack knowledge and inspiration to seek ways to improve their lives and those of their offspring. Lacking any hope of being able to change their lives for the better, these people are trapped in a vicious poverty cycle.

The extent of hardship faced by children in rural China is difficult for us to understand in Australia where we have solid welfare nets and a world-class education system. If we realise the many privileges that we have and look to the compassion in our hearts, we will find a desire to work for this cause for our actions could amount to joys and excitement for children who yearn for access to better education as well as giving them hope for a better future.

We could share some of the privileges that we have by creating projects and raising funds to sponsor children through their school years, offering the choice of having an education while building cross-country connections and friendships that will open minds and bridge hearts.