Overseas
China
Issue
1, 2004
July
2004
Please send comments
and suggestions to ocef@ocef.org
Address:
Editors: Xiaofan Huang, Gan Liang; Proofread by Shiyi
Chen
The original materials
from: Zhongmin Zhou, Yuting Miao, Qian Liu, Hesong Cai, Jirong Cui, Xiaohu
Shan, Wenxin Sun, Haoyu Guo
Headlines
·
The News
Brief
·
Foundation
Progress Bulletin
§ Financial Aid Program
§ “One-to-One” Program
§
§
§
Inspection Process
§ Library Program
§
Village Kids
§ Special Projects
§
The Founding of the
§
Web Development Group
§
The Exponential Growth of Volunteers and Members and
the Optimization of OCEF
·
Special Report
§
The Photo Album of
School Inspections and Home Visits by Mr. Zhou
§
We’ve Got
New School Desks!
§
Volunteers Column- A
Few Words from Us
§
Coordinator of the
Month - Mr. Yumei Feng
§
A Letter from the
Sponsored Kids
·
Appendix 1 Appendix 1 2003 OCEF Financial Report
·
Appendix 2 The Distribution of Sponsored
Students of the 2003-04 Academic Year
·
Appendix 3 Donation Count (07/01/2003 - 12/31/2003)
OCEF needs your help! Volunteers from all over the world are more than
welcome to join our team to work in areas such as fundraising,
inspection, library project, publishing, and BBS. We are currently in great
need of lawyers and CPAs in the
The News Brief
·
On July
4, 2004, Zhou Zhongmin, an inspector of Overseas China Education Foundation
(OCEF), returned to
·
Starting
from May 2004, OCEF began to accept car donations with income tax deduction
benefits. Please email donateyourcar@ocef.org
if interested.
·
William
Howard Hinton, comparable in fame as Edgar Snow (the writer of Red Star
Over China) in the early years of the People’s Republic, passed away on
May 15, 2004 at the age of 85. In 1948, Hinton spent six months as an observer
of the Land Reformation in Long Bow Village of Shanxi province in
·
A picnic
was held in
·
The
Board appointed Jirong Cui and Xiaofan Huang vice presidents of OCEF in May
2004. Xiaohu Shan was elected member of Executive Committee. Hesong Cai and
Qian Liu were made directors of OCEF Board in
· From January 2004 to May 2004, OCEF raised over $50,000 through various fundraising activities with companies, alumni associations, etc. This success is the results of hard work of each of the local fundraising teams. The goal of 2004 fundraising is set to surpass $102K, the total donation collected in 2003.
·
The
Boston Fundraising Group of OCEF was established in early 2004, and has since
participated in five local events, including MIT Chinese New Year Party.
Members of the
· To promote Chinese arts and culture, and raise fund for OCEF, Tang Jiying Calligraphy Charity Sale was held between April 3 and 17, 2004 at the headquarter of Texas First Bank. Except a small amount of framing expenses, all $3000 collected from the sales will go to OCEF Financial Aid Program. The photo below is Mr. Tang, a calligraphist.
· The Grant Program of Google provided OCEF with a 3-month free searching starting April 2004.
·
OCEF
Northern California Chapter was founded on Feb 8, 2004! Please refer to OCEF Northern California
Chapter news brief on page 5 for more details.
·
The
amount of fund raised in 2003 has topped $100K for the first time since OCEF’s
founding. For more details, please see Appendix 1 Y2003 OCEF Financial Report.
Thanks to all the donors for their generosities!
OCEF
Progress Bulletin
Financial
Aid Program: For the spring semester of 2004, OCEF sponsored 1222 students
in 18 provinces of
“One-to-One” Program: Many donors have actively participated in the “1 to 1” program since its initiation in 2003. This program allows the donors to specify the students to be sponsored, and so far over 500 students have received financial support through this program. Until recently, OCEF had been re-evaluating and re-approving all the sponsored students on an annual basis. However, based on donors’ wishes to support the same students until their graduation, a new procedure will be put in place in Fall 2004. This allows the students to receive continuous support once their first applications have been approved, so long as their financial situations have not significantly improved. OCEF volunteers will monitor their situations through home visits and inspections. We believe this new policy will help remove uncertainties and give student confidence to finish their educations.
Team
Building of the Financial Aid Group: In 2004, the Financial Aid Group has focused on team building and the
increase of transparency and effectiveness for better serving the donors.
During the first five months of 2004, there are 58 OCEF coordinators active in
83 schools in 18 provinces. Ten volunteers in
OCEF High
School Scholarship Program: OCEF is
planning to set up a special scholarship to support outstanding high school
students with financial difficulties. OCEF is currently seeking suggestions and
feedbacks with the goal of finalizing the policies and procedures for this
program within the next few months.
Welcome
to join the discussion in our Rainbow BBS.
Inspection: For the past two years, OCEF inspectors have gone
through great difficulties traveling around all 18 provinces supported by OCEF
except Tibet, to visit student homes and inspect schools. We are still looking
for inspectors for two schools in Tibet. OCEF inspects each supported school at
least once every two years. Please
contact us if you are interested in the inspection in Tibet. Application and
registration for inspection work in 2005 have started.
More application
information is available in Rainbow BBS or email to ocef@ocef.org.
Here are some photos
and stories provided by our inspectors,
Visitation
News Brief The
Narrative of Tiankeng Dong Approaching
Buyi Village -- the Investigation of Longjiao Center School Visit to
Malipo -- The Story Behind The Photos
Library Program: The Library Program was set up in 2003. After
a pilot program that helped OCEF gain some experiences, the Library Program was
formally launched in 2004. In order to set up reading rooms in the most
cost-effective way, the program mainly counts on book drives in Mainland China.
It also purchases books when overseas donation designated for this purpose is
available. With the help from schools and friendly organizations in China, OCEF
collected over 7,000 books and set up 13 reading rooms in the first five months
of 2004. Meanwhile, we have recruited many volunteers locally to facilitate
optimum circulation of the books. A special US$6000 library project is well in
process in Henan. After very careful evaluations, we have identified 11
under-supported schools that are interested in setting up reading rooms. OCEF
volunteers have also worked hard to obtain quality books at deeply discounted
prices so that more books can be purchased with the donation.
In the first half of
this year, volunteers of the Library Program have visited several schools with
reading rooms sponsored by OCEF. They witnessed the reading rooms being put to
good use. Many schools have sent us warm thank-you letters. Many students have
shared their comments on some books with us after reading them. These letters
are testimonials that the generosities of the donors and the efforts of our
volunteers are worthwhile. The inspections of reading rooms in Mengshan Shuangtong Primary School
and Wanerchuan Primary School,
Gansu province are shown below.
In
the remaining of 2004, OCEF will continue to formalize the Library Program,
standardize the procedures, and build online electronic libraries and school
database. This is to further the efficiency of the program and set standards
for other projects of OCEF. We plan to set up 30 reading rooms this year.
Please contact Library@ocef.org
if you or your friends and family members in China wish to donate to the
Library Program.
The students and teachers in Wanerchuan Primary Schools (Gansu) came up
with many ways to optimize the use of donated books. At the beginning, they set
up a library room for students to borrow books after class. However, it turned
out to be not very convenient for the students. Now a book corner is set up in
each classroom, and the head teacher of each class leads several students to
manage the books. The head teachers borrow books from the librarian in the
beginning of every semester as they see fit and return them at the end of the
semester. This way, the books will be exchanged among different classes every
semester and it also simplifies the borrowing process and makes it convenient
for the students.
Village Kids: A free magazine for kids supported by OCEF, was first published in Oct 2004. Close to 200 letters from the kids have been received so far. The magazine is intended to help kids build up self-confidence, and understand that the purpose of education is more than getting good grades. It is also to broaden their view of the world, and develop better communication skills. With the support from many kind friends, the second issue came out this May with improved quality. Vol. 3 is currently in editing phase. More columns and articles suitable for junior high school students will be included.
Here are the 1st and 2nd issues.
The publication of Village Kids requires great
amount of work (typing, replying letters from kids, writing articles, editing,
and art work). We really need your help. If you are interested, please contact the
related BBS
board.
Special Projects: OCEF has set up three types of special projects: building new schools, improving existing school facilities, and collecting donations of stationeries and sports equipments. These projects are mainly financed by one-time donations from OCEF donors, and are managed by OCEF volunteers in terms of purchasing, transporting, and monitoring to ensure the funds are used according to the donors’ intentions. As OCEF has more than 100 volunteers from all sectors in China, they can often get very good discounted prices.
Sponsored by OCEF, the construction of the Lansha Yao People’s Primary School in Guangxi province was completed recently. Please check out our BBS for details. (There are many pictures of cute and lovely little girls of the Yao minority group.)
Furthermore, the constructions of four other schools in Guizhou and Sichuan are approaching final completion. We will follow up with more detailed report in the next newsletter.
The Founding of the Northern California
Chapter: On Feb. 8,
2004, the first OCEF chapter, the Northern California Chapter (OCEF_NCA), was
founded in San Francisco area. Since then, OCEF_NCA leaders have actively
organized a series of fund-raising activities including building a BBS board
dedicated to Chinese rural education in the popular website www.aladding.com, promoting OCEF in the
Tsinghua and Peking University Alumni parties, and raising funds through
friends and coworkers. In less than 4 months since its founding, OCEF_NCA
raised over US$5000, recruited 22 active
members and became another important OCEF operation center. Members of OCEF_NCA
have taken up a lot of responsibilities which include fundraising, promoting
OCEF in Bay Area, communicating and coordinating with other local associations
and education aid organizations, getting involved in various internal
operations of OCEF, managing the “One-to-One” program and High School
Scholarship Program, and building an electronic intra-platform for OCEF.
Guests were looking at the OCEF photo exhibits and
reading footnotes at a fundraising party held by OCEF member Chunfeng Pei.
Web Development
Group: The web group
updated the OCEF web pages in 2003, which will help facilitate OCEF fundraising
activities. In the first 6 months of 2004, with support from the Board of
directors, the group purchased several servers and finished the basic
configuration. The group now provides services for public website, Email,
Newsgroup, and intranet. Compared with free servers shared with the public
domain, the in-house servers will serve OCEF with more flexibilities and
capacities.
During the first half
of 2004, the web group collaborated with other related groups to set up a
system-development team. Currently, they are developing a system for key OCEF
processes. The completion of 2004 development plan is expected to improve
efficiency for the donor/member service group, the fundraising group, and the
China Affairs Group.
With the supports of
many OCEF directors, the web group recruited many IT professionals to build a
strong team. In order to better serve OCEF, the function of the web group will
be re-evaluated and re-defined in the near future to optimize the
organizational structure of the group.
The Exponential Growth of Volunteers and
Members and the Optimization of OCEF: Since last autumn, the number of donors, members and
volunteers of OCEF have increased steeply. This brings a lot more manpower to
OCEF on one hand, but it demands a much higher level of collaboration and more
streamlined work process within OCEF on the other hand. Fortunately, with the
rapid growth of OCEF, many management professionals have joined as well. Now,
OCEF is building up electronic intra-platform, formalizing work procedures, and
strengthening the volunteer training program to improve organization efficiency
Special Report
The Photo Album of School Inspections and Home Visits by Mr. Zhou: Mr. Zhongmin Zhou, an OCEF inspector and a retired technician, embarked on a journey of inspection from Jinchang, Gansu on March 25th and returned to Beijing on July 4th after visiting more than 500 children and their families. The children supported by OCEF are from Ningxia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Jilin and Heilongjiang. Mr. Zhou and other inspectors have brought back assurances that donations are going to kids in real needs and that the schools are following our procedures in student applications and fund distributions. The photos taken by Mr. Zhou give us an opportunity to know the students as well as their living conditions.
Photos of Ninxia province below are from Mr. Zhou.
During inspection, Mr. Zhou
entered a Salina by mistake.
In Yanchi County, with the help of a local
coordinator - Mr. Yumei Feng, Mr. Zhou visited 40 children supported by OCEF in
35 families. This is a typical family house in Qingshan Village. The fence is
almost buried by the sand.
The tough environment makes the locals smarter. Do you know what was this well built for? It is not a warm cellar, but a water filter. The local villagers use it to refine the salty water to pure water.
Under this plastic tent is the drinking water
storage cellar of the village. With high concentration of fluorine and highly
basified, Qingshan Village water is not drinkable. Qingshan High School’s
drinking water has to be transported from 20 kilometers away by car and it is
always in short supply. Every year, RMB 10,000 Yuan’s, more than 30 percents of
school budget was spent on drinking water, which increases the difficulties to
school operation and daily life of the local residents.
Due to severe sandstorms,
low annual precipitation, poor density of vegetation coverage, and insufficient
irrigation system, farmers can rarely harvest enough crops even though each
family manages to farm 50-60 Chinese acres. Over cultivation and destruction of
vegetation, cause farmlands to quickly become deserts.
Look at their hearty smile when they found
out on the Bulletin that they would be sponsored by OCEF!
We’ve got new
desks! There is a very small primary school, Yanlong Primary
School, in an extremely remote village of Guangxi . The village is so remote that
there was no school close by. The kids had to hike miles in the mountains if
they wanted to go to school. At the same time, poverty destroyed many
children's dreams for school. Their family could not afford the $40 annual
tuition. As a result, the kids often had to start school later in their life,
or drop out of school. Seeing the struggle of the kids and their
families, Mr. Yang Guanghua, a young farmer at that time, built and started
Yanlong Primary School single-handedly in 1992.
Mr. Guanghua Yang is the
founder and the only teacher in this school.
He asked nothing for tuition
except a few dozen catties of rice per semester, which local farmers can
afford. With no subsidy from government, Yang runs the school on proceeds from
his own fifteen-acre tea garden for many years.
They couldn’t afford the
blackboard, school desks, and chairs. These planks become the substitutes.
One day, a visitor, Mr. Zhou
Zhongming, spread the story of Yanlong Primary School over the mountain. Many
warm-hearted people outside the village soon knew it. People from Lingyun
County sent dictionaries, exercise books, pencils and the most popular sports
balls. Friends from Shanghai "Literary
attainment and moral cultivation" online forum mailed them books and
clothing. Friends from Fuzhou "Simple Volunteer" Magazine donated
clothes, shoes, and toys. OCEF made school desks and blackboards for the
children.
Volunteers Column
- A Few Words from One of Us: I like to surf the Internet very much. Some friends
online introduced OCEF to me. After I became a volunteer of OCEF, I started to
ask myself how to help OCEF with my own resources. I work in a company named
Aladdin (www.aladding.com) that runs a news entertainment website with an average
of 25K visitors and 300K hits per day. In Oct. 2003, I created a web link on
Aladdin, named “ $40 to help poor kids go back to school”. After the founding
of North California Chapter of OCEF, I followed the suggestion from friends and
created a special column on Aladdin, "The Field of Hope". The goal is
to use more illustrative pictures and articles to introduce to more people the
rural education situation in China, promote fundraising activities of OCEF, and
help people understand what we have been doing, so they can feel more
comfortable about donating. At the same time, we hope the column will bring
more publicity for OCEF so more would find us and join us. The “Field of
Hope" had got 34831 hits up to May 25th, 3 months after it started. Although
the special column hasn’t brought as much publicity as we would like so far, it
has actually attracted several volunteers to our gladness. I feel that the more
I participated in the volunteer work, the more I understand OCEF. Just like what our inspector, Mr. Zhou's said,
"Everyone is working for the same goal. We inspire others and are also
inspired by others." I really like
this feeling.
- By Ellen He, a board member of Northern California Chapter
Coordinator of the
Month - Mr. Yumei Feng: Mr. Yumei Feng is our coordinator in Yanchi County,
Ningxia. He has been very enthusiastic about helping out in our Financial Aid
Program. In order not to burden the local schools, he brought his own meals and
drinking water during the fund distribution trips last fall and this spring.
Born to a farmer’s family, Mr. Feng had held an office in the county and now
runs his own business. But he did not forget his root after become successful.
He started to support local students out of his own pocket long before he
partnered up with OCEF. He also has two
sons who came to the United States after college, both of whom are now OCEF
volunteers.
Mr. Feng is visiting a home of students sponsored by
OCEF.
A Letter from a
sponsored child:
Dear OCEF Donors and Volunteers,
Greetings!
Thank you so much for the 478 books from you on April 13th. They are not only books, but also hopes to kids like us who like to read and can’t afford the books. We 6th grade students are especially grateful for your timely help.
We will benefit from many of these books for the lifetime. We will cherish every book we borrow. No damage will be allowed. I was not interested in Mathematics. But after reading “The Math Stories”, I was deeply attracted to it. As I read it again and again, I feel that I am more and more interested in Math.
I can't be thankful enough for your help. Without these books, I wouldn’t have changed the idea of math was too difficult to learn, and it wouldn’t have been possible for me to become interested in math. You gave us the fortune of knowledge and motivation for study.
I would like to say thank you again for your encouragement and unselfish support. I will study even harder and try to help others in the future as you have helped us.
Best Wishes!
Xiuli Mo
(04-20-2004)
Appendix 1 2003 OCEF Financial
Report
Appendix
2 The Distribution of Sponsored Students of the 2003-04 Academic Year
Spring Semester of 2004, OCEF sponsored 1222 students. Here is the summary of distribution: Yunan (82), Inner Mongolia (50), Jilin (45), Sichuan (84), Anhui (29), Shanxi (129), Guangxi (62), Jiangxi (182), Henan (78), Zhejiang (28), Hunan (83), Gansu (26), Guizhou (23), Shaanxi (29), Helongjiang (78).
|
Schools |
Province |
# |
Schools |
Province |
# |
Schools |
Province |
# |
|
Jiping 2nd Middle School |
Yunnan |
32 |
Tongyu Middle School |
Jiangsu |
30 |
Wamen Primary School |
Henan |
16 |
|
Malipo 1st Middle School |
Yunnan |
22 |
Dunhou Town Center Primary School |
Jiangxi |
27 |
Tantou Jiaotong Hope Primary School |
Henan |
10 |
|
Malipo Minzu Middle School |
Yunnan |
28 |
Dunhou Town Duimen Primary School |
Jiangxi |
2 |
Changgou Primary School |
Henan |
30 |
|
Xianghuangdi Primary School |
Inner Mongolia |
12 |
Dunhou Town Shengshang Primary School |
Jiangxi |
4 |
Madichuan Primary School |
Henan |
22 |
|
Helinge`er County Dahong Town Primary School |
Inner Mongolia |
23 |
Shuinan Primary School |
Jiangxi |
20 |
Huanglang Middle School |
Sichuan |
12 |
|
Lishu Middle School |
Jilin |
30 |
Yongyang Middle School |
Jiangxi |
30 |
Zhangbei Middle School |
Sichuan |
13 |
|
Xiazanze Primary School |
Shanxi |
3 |
Baijia Middle School |
Jiangxi |
30 |
Wumiao Town Center Primary School |
Sichuan |
1 |
|
Xialin Guandongzhuang Primary School |
Shanxi |
2 |
Yingping Primary School |
Jiangxi |
10 |
Wumiao Junior Middle School |
Sichuan |
20 |
|
Xialinguan Junior Middle School |
Shanxi |
7 |
Lizhou Primary School |
Jiangxi |
30 |
Fuyan Middle School |
Sichuan |
30 |
|
Xialin Guanxizhuang Primary School |
Shanxi |
2 |
Huangsha Primary School |
Jiangxi |
29 |
Subei Yangbei Primary School |
Sichuan |
8 |
|
Xiabaiyang Primary School |
Shanxi |
4 |
Xiacunxiang School |
Hunan |
25 |
Wanglejing Middle School |
Ningxia |
20 |
|
Lanyu Primary School |
Shanxi |
4 |
Yunxi Middle School |
Hunan |
23 |
Qingshan Center Primary School |