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.’