Three days before our VP, Waisiu, return to Hangzhou, some of us has a chance to enjoy a dinner with him on Wednesday, July 21st.  In the middle of the week, only three of the guys have time to show up at Bellevue's Toys Cafe.  See photo.

The two and a half hour conversation covered many subjects from CTEF projects, to general economic and trade conditions in China.  Significant topics are the need for CTEF to upgrade thw web page; to better manage the resources in our board; to how the housing prices in China affecting the emerging new middle class; and on the trend in hiring for the educated; to the long term goal for CTEF in China.

In short, we had a very productive time.

Dennis

China Tomorrow Education Foundation (CTEF) has recently received a funding request to help rebuild ShangGang Elementary School in LeYe County, GuangXi province, China. We are doing fundraisings for this project. To make a donation and help the students at ShangGang School, please visit here.

The ShangGang Elementary School is located at ShangGang Village, LeYe County, GuangXi Province in China. The region has typical mountainous terrains as well as an under-developed road system. More than half of the residents are ethnic minorities who have lived there for generations. Historically this is one of the most under-developed areas in the province. The meager county budget has limited support to improve the very poor school conditions in the region. Such dire conditions in return limit the build of a skilled labor force needed to lift the local economy.

The ShangGang School serves the village’s 2860 residents with 16 teachers and 230 students. The existing small lecture building was constructed in the 1980s by the local people. It has been identified as a level-D decrepit structure and is not safe to harbor the young students should some disastrous events happen. However, without the funding to construct a new building, the students still have to take classes in the old building. In fact they need much more than a safe lecture building. Their wish list goes on from dormitory, library, to dining room and multimedia classroom, etc.

There is an exciting plan to demolish the old building, and replace it with a new three-story multi-function concrete building. The building will feature 500 square meters (5,400 sqft) of learning and living space in total. With the unit construction cost at 900 Yuan per square meter, and the ground-leveling and road-paving cost factored in, the gross cost will be 468,000 Yuan. The local school district is able to provide a small portion of the funding, 68,000 Yuan. Therefore there is a gap of funds of 400,000 Yuan, or $59,000. Eager to raise the remaining funds to rebuild the school as soon as possible, the local people are looking to China Tomorrow Education Foundation for help.

With our local partner in Guangxi, You2V, CTEF has successfully built 15 schools in the nearby regions over the past 5 years. We have accumulated a rich experience in sponsoring and monitoring school renovation projects in remote villages. We also follow up with the teachers and students after the new schools are in use, often contribute additional teaching equipments, classroom furniture and more to ensure the students have a better learning experience in the new school buildings.

Pictures of ShangGang School

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Original Application From ShangGang School

乐业县同乐镇上岗小学综合楼项目建议书

一、 建设项目的必要性

1、项目区经济、社会发展概况

乐业，被誉为“世界天坑之都”，位于广西西北部，地处云贵高原东南麓。全县辖4镇4乡，总面积2617平方公里，石山面积占30%，土山面积占70%，总人口15.7万，居住着壮、汉、瑶、苗、布依、彝、仫佬、仡佬、京、水、侗等11个民族，其中壮族占50%，汉族占48%，其他少数民族占2%。全境山多地少，重峦迭嶂、沟洼纵横，是山区农业型“老、少、边、山、穷县”，自然环境恶劣，交通、通讯比较落后，经济基础十分薄弱，是国务院认定的28个扶贫开发重点县之一，由于财政困难，教育投入严重不足，教育发展步履艰难。

2、项目学校教育现状

上岗村是同乐镇人口稠密的农业大村，上岗小学是上岗村村级完全小学，创办于1940年，是同乐镇创办时间早，规模较大的村级学校之一，学校位于县城西面，离县城五千米，居上岗坝中心，通往大石围天坑景区和通往贵阳的省道分别从学校南北两面横穿而过，且离学校仅一千余米。学校覆盖上岗村8个自然屯，人口2860人。有在校生230人，教师16人。占地面积：2555平方米，建筑面积：1000平方米。其中有一栋八十年代初建的群众投工投劳的教学楼，经鉴定已属危房。没有教师宿舍和学生的多媒体教室、教学仪器室、少先队活动室、图书阅览室、体育劳技室及教师办公室、学生宿舍、食堂紧缺。

3、项目建设的必要性

经济要发展，教育要先行，因此，推倒危房校舍，解除师生安全隐患，扩建一栋建筑面积为500平方米的砖混结构师生宿舍楼，成了学校急需解决的主要问题和困难，也是当地群众的迫切要求。

二、项目建设规模和资金概算

（一）综合楼设计方案

扩建一栋三层框架结构建筑面积为500平方米的综合楼。每层167平方米，共6开间，每间长6米，宽3.6米，走廊进深2米。

（二）投资概算

1、扩建一栋三层框架结构综合楼，建筑面积为500平方米。按当地建筑市场每平方米900元造价计算，约需45万元。

2、三通一平”费1.8万元。

以上合计共需46.8万元。

三、资金筹措办法

1、申请资金40万元。

2、县配套6.8万元。

四、建设年限：二0一0年四月至二0一0年十二月。

五、项目实施管理的措施

1、成立乐业县上岗村中心小学校舍建设工作领导小组，由凌云县心守家园志愿者协会监督，乐业县教育局具体负责项目的实施工作。

2、在凌云县心守家园志愿者协会监督下，教育局按下达项目建设规模和投资计划定额，包干建设，保证建筑工程质量达到国家标准。

3、由百色市综合规划设计院按国家最新校舍建筑规范设计施工图纸，由监理公司、质检站、设计室和教育局校安办负责质检，学校抽出一名领导负责工程施工监督工作，把好工程质量关。

4、管好用好专项建设资金，建好项目财务台帐，把好支出关，杜绝贪污或挪用，县财政保证配套资金及时到位，确保工程按时动工，按期竣工。

5、在县领导小组的直接领导下，采用招标方式选用有资质建筑队承包建设，努力达到少花钱多办事。

6、主动向资助单位和个人汇报项目实施进度和遇到的问题。项目建成后，可由捐赠方为教学综合楼命名，并在楼顶正面醒目处悬挂以昭示人，激励师生及群众永记亲人的功德。工程竣工后，邀请捐资方为工程竣工剪彩，并及时把工程竣工报告单和竣工照片上报。

六、预期效益

同乐镇上岗村完小综合楼建成后，可解决学校紧缺的各功能室和学生住宿，极大改善学校的办学条件，这对进一步调动当地群众送子女入学的积极性，扩大学校办学规模，提高办学效益，进一步完善学校的管理，提高教育教学质量，顺利迎接义务教育学校常规管理达标验收提供有效保障。

乐业县教育局

凌云县心守家园志愿者协会

二0一0年二月四日

Over the weekend of July 10th and 11th, the days after Seattle had its hottest day on record, CTEF participated in the Seattle Chinatown/ID Summer Festival with a booth at the usual location close to the big McDonald booth at the center of Chinatown.

The following Board members and volunteers took time to help out at the booth:  Cathie Dai, Guangyu Gu, Joanne Lin, Xin Ge, Michelle Zou, Laura Yang, Yilei Wang, Elsa Tang, and our new assistant Mindy.  Our display boards attracted those who were interested about China's rural education or who have been to China. Besides handing out our flyers on the 1+1 Sponsorship program, we also gave those who spent time listened to our presentation with a bottle of the hand sensitizer.

各位热心的同事和朋友：

看看，我们捐建的村小已经初现雏形了，这是我们在村小施工当地的监督方王校长寄来的最新照片。

• 在建工地

•  
  • 如照片所示，村小主体工程完成四分之三，砖墙接近完成。
  • 由于四川近来阴雨连绵，工地建设进展不如预想顺利。不过经再三确认，工程队保证今夏九月前竣工以确保下学期投入使用。

• 后续计划

•  
  • 在村小主体工程完成验收后，我会联系明日中华教育基金会汇给王校长五万元人民币，由王校长分批付给施工方。
  • 大家可能注意到，我们在募捐倡议书里提过，准备在学校的介绍铭牌刻上捐款达到或超过1000元（或200美元）的热心朋友的名字。随着学校的建设进展，现在需要征集捐的款达到或超过1000元（或200美元）的捐助人对此的意愿以及镌刻的姓名（比如以您可爱女儿的名义）。
  • 微软亚太研发集团关于公益慈善活动的七月初通讯，将会介绍这一项目，这是公司其他同事对于我们这一努力的认可，到时大家可以骄傲地向家人、朋友和其他同事展示宣传。感谢Jane Zheng的辛勤工作和对于项目的支持。
  • 提议原计划七月组织的项目讨论会延迟到八月底九月初，讨论大家关心的话题，包括第二阶段募捐、捐款使用、实地考察和支教安排。原因如下：

•  
  •  
    • 不少同事安排在七月份休假，所以在七月份组织项目讨论会和募捐的效果可能会不够理想。
    • 人力资源部将在九月初组织一次微软上海园区范围的爱心拍卖/义卖活动，形式与去年STBC为地震组织的爱心拍卖/义卖相似，我正与组织者协商争取将此项目作为受益项目。在此之前安排一次项目讨论会，有利于我们在爱心拍卖/义卖活动中更好地展示项目，争取人气，招募更多九月份去村小实地考察和志愿支教的朋友。

以前的项目进度报告，您可以在此找到：http://sharepointasia/sites/SichuanSchool。如果您有任何建议和意见，请联系我。

谢谢!

Hi, dear warmhearted colleagues and friends:

Look, you can see the rough shape of our village school now! J The photos are sent by Mr. Wang, the local supervisor for the school construction:

• Construction

•  
  • As shown in photos, ¾ of the main framework has been completed. The brick walls have almost been done.
  • The progress is a little bit slower than expected because there were many rainy days there. But I double checked with Mr. Wang that the construction team promises to complete the school construction before this September so that it can be used of the coming semester.

• Next Step

•  
  • After main framework is finished and checked, I will contact CTEF to send another 50K RMB to Mr. Wang, and then Mr. Wang will give it to construction team in different batches.
  • As you known, the “Call for Donation” letter mentioned that we plan to make a plaque listing the donor names above $200 (or 1000 RMB). Along with the school building process, now we’d like to check whether and whose name you wish to put on the plaque for yourself, e.g. it can be in the name of your lovely daughter.
  • Microsoft Asia-Pacific R&D group will have a charity focus newsletter at the beginning of the coming July, introducing this project. This is truly a recognition from other colleague for our effort. Please feel free to share the story with your family members, friends and other colleagues with proud! And thanks to Jane Zheng’s hard work on this and support for our project.
  • Propose to postpone the “July” project meeting to the end of August, discussing all topics interesting to you, such as fund raising, donation usage, school visit and volunteering teaching arrangement. The reasons behind this change are:

•  
  •  
    • Some colleagues have arranged July as vacation time, so the meeting and the 2^nd milestone of “call for donation” might not go as well as wished.
    • HR department is planning a charity auction event on early September, across all groups in Microsoft Shanghai campus. It will be pretty much like the one we had for earthquake last year in STBC. I’m discussing with the event organizer, and working on making our project as the target beneficiary. If scheduling a project discussion meeting right before that, it will help us prepare well to showcase the project, earn more eyeball and potentially recruit more friends for the school visiting and volunteering teaching on September.

You can find all previous status email on http://sharepointasia/sites/SichuanSchool. Feel free to contact me if you have concerns, suggestions or questions.

Thanks.

Zhen Wei

(This is an article written by a 4th grader from Guizhou province CongJiang county. A common thing like a garbage can be special to a kid in the rural area and he is inspired by this garbage can donated by CTEF.)

       谷坪乡中心小学四年级杨文平的作文

以前我刚来到中心校读书的时候,我不知道什么是垃圾桶,我就去问我的哥哥,那时我哥哥读四年级而我读二年级.我就问:哥哥,什么是垃圾桶啊？ 哥哥说，你不知道 什么是垃圾桶吗？那我就告诉你垃圾桶很重要的，我说，说来听一下。我哥说：你吃的那些糖啊、水果皮啊、你都丢进那里去。我回答说我丢进那个桶，我哥说，你都丢进那个桶，那个桶就是垃圾桶。啊，原来垃圾桶就是那个桶啊！到这里我才知道垃圾桶有什么用啊，可以带来让人感动的一件高兴的事情。

(From Editor Cheary Huang)  对于当地的学生写作水平来说，这个学生写得已经很不错了，我没有修改过。感谢明日中华捐助的垃圾桶，让这些孩子得到一些启发。)

(Dennis & Xin)

It was a community celebration held at the Banaroya Hall in downtown Seattle last Saturday, May 29, 2010. This event is about the Shanghai 2010 EXPO and the Guangzhou Asia Games later this year.  It is also a celebration of Chinese Performing arts and traditional culture. CTEF was invited by CHIME, a co-sponsor of the event, to host a display stand there.  In the magnificent lobby of the concert hall, CTEF presented the new 1+1 Sponsorship program as well as highlighted the Guizhou school uniform project.  We have plenty of flyers and newsletters for distribution to the event attendants.  Yilei Wang and Cathie Dai were the two volunteers managing the games for children and grown ups alike to attract the crowd.  There were many serious inquires about CTEF and its missions.  Events like this gave CTEF a lot of exposure to the general public and a fun way for our volunteers to spend an afternoon.

Editor’s note: This blog is written by our volunteer, Zhen Wei (魏臻), who is working for the Microsoft Technical Computing group in Shanghai, China. His group and CTEF are building a school in his hometown – Nanchong, Sichuan. He revisited the school recently and sent us this progress report. Click here to see his previous post on this school.

各位热心的同事和朋友：

我在4月30日探访了我们捐建村小的在建工地和在租用民房里学习的孩子们，具体情况和照片如下:  

• 在建工地
  • 村委会和工程队于四月份签订工程合同，约定工程完成时间为七月底，对材料规格等进行了细化设计和规定，并将教室宽度由原计划的6.5米改为国家教室标准的6米，符合实际需要。
  • 准备工作和辅助事宜
    • 征地完成，村小新校址就在现租用民房旁。
    • 简单修缮了连接公路和村小校址的乡村公路，以便从公路运送来的建筑材料能够经过小货车的二次搬运运到工地。
    • 工地用水准备就绪。
  • 工地：地基挖坑完成，地基石料运送在此后一天内完成。工地进度比预想的略慢，主要原因是四月中下旬当地下雨较多，简陋的乡村公路雨天泥泞，无法通车。
• 村小现状：
  • 村小现租用一楼一底两间民房作为教室，由照片可见比我们第一次去考察时教室条件稍有改善，因为房东去年在听说我们有意捐助村小后，改造原房屋以期夫妻教师用我们的捐款买或租做教室。考虑到改造后的房屋在通风采光和安全等方面不能达到正规教室的标准，而且如此办学对房东的依赖性太大，去年我和县教育局和乡中心小学老师去访问时拒绝了房东的提议。
  • 4月30日我达到时，村小刚好准备要放五一和农忙假，所以我只简单在二三年级合用的教室里拍了两张照片和一段视频。
• 捐款情况:
  • 我们项目在当地的监管代理方--乡完小王副校长出具10万元人民币首批工程款的收据，我已由挂号信寄给CTEF在杭州的副主席罗绍伟。
  • 我们在第一阶段捐款募集了约合10万人民币，加上公司的等额匹配刚好达到20万的村小建设预算。我准备在七月份村小接近竣工时，再发起一次较大规模的捐款倡议，以解决村小的桌椅和运动器材等。
  • 捐款情况，和以前的项目进展报告，请访问项目网站：http://sharepointasia/sites/SichuanSchool（公司内网）或http://blogs.technet.com/chinahpc/（外部网站）。
• 后续计划
  • 我会每两至三周发一次在建工地照片。
  • 七月组织一次项目讨论会，讨论大家关心的话题，包括募捐、捐款使用、实地考察和支教安排。

如果您有任何建议和意见，请联系我。

谢谢!

魏臻 四川山区村小项目经理

Hi, dear warmhearted colleagues and friends:

On 30th, April, I went to visit our village school in construction and lovely students studying in rented houses. Here comes the details and photos:

• Construction
  • The village committee has signed contract with a local construction team. The construction will be completed by the end of July; Some construction details such as material specification are designed and written down; The classroom width is changed from 6.5 meters of original plan to 6 meters, which is the national classroom standard and meets real requirement.
  • Preparation work
    • The land for new village school has been requisitioned for free. The new location is besides the current rented classrooms.
    • The country road, connecting road and the school, has been roughly fixed so that construction materials can be carried from road to school by small truck.
    • Water supply has been completed.
  • Main construction work: the ground foundation is almost done. The progress is a little bit slower than expected because there were many rainy days in April there, so that the country road is too bad for truck to get through.
• The current situation of the village school
  • The school is renting 2 classrooms from a peasant. If you look at the photo, the classrooms look a little bit better than the first time we saw them. This is because the landlord knew that we want to support the school, and then improved the houses, in order to sell or rent his houses to the couple teachers. However, the houses are still not qualified for standard classrooms even after improvement, and it will make the school take a hard dependency on landlord if the couple teachers accept his offer. As a result, we rejected this offer when county education bureau officer, village central teachers and I went to investigate the village school last year.
  • At my arrival time, the school is about to start the May Day holiday and busy farming vacation. So I just took 2 photos and one short video in one of the 2 classrooms.
• Donation:
  • Our local coordinator has written a receipt for the first project expense 100k RMB. And I have mailed it to vice president of CTEF Waisiu in Hangzhou.
  • We have raised about 100k RMB in the first fund raising milestone. Counting in company’s match, it’s about what we need for construction – 200k RMB. I plan to initial another wave of fund raising in July, in order to buy desks, chairs, sports apparatus, etc.
  • Please find the donation progress and previous status reports at the project website: http://sharepointasia/sites/SichuanSchool (Intranet) or http://blogs.technet.com/chinahpc/ (Extranet).
• Next Step
  • I will send construction photos every 2 to 3 weeks.
  • Have a project meeting in July, discussing all topics interesting to you, such as fund raising, donation usage, school visit and volunteering teaching arrangement.

Feel free to contact me if you have concerns, suggestions or questions.

Thanks!

Zhen Wei, Sichuan School Project Manager

CTEF 9th Annual Dinner was held on May 1st at China Harbor Restaurant.  President Su reported the progress of CTEF’s work.  Despite the adverse economic condition and reduced fund, CTEF keeps on supporting the school and library projects. In addition, CTEF has launched a new program to help individual students that are in need of help.  CTEF is currently sponsoring 150 students in the Sichuan Earthquake zone and helping 20 middle school students.  Please contact scholarship@ctef.org if you are interested.

The Daughters of China group attended the annual dinner. These girls were adopted from China. Each year, they bring their beautiful shows as well as donations from their fund raising projects.  Thank you, Daughters of China!

The CTEF 9th annual dinner was reported in Seattle Chinese Post:

For more pictures from the annual dinner, please visit our Facebook Page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/CTEF/113881218648282.

It’s that time of the year again. CTEF will host its 9th annual dinner this Saturday in Seattle.

When: Saturday, May 01, 2010, 6:00 PM-9:00 PM (Pacific Time)

Where: China Harbor Restaurant, 2040 Westlake Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109

Activities include:

• Presentation on CTEF projects in 2009 and 2010
• Entertainment from special guests
• Raffle prizes

Ticket is $35 per person. For more information, please contact Dennis Su at 206-949-4868, or email info@ctef.org.

As most people know, CTEF is a Seattle based non-profit organization and most of volunteers are based in US. However, a significant part of our operation is in China, and we are counting on our hard working local volunteers and many other NGO partners.

I start to deeply appreciate our local volunteers' work when we start the "5.12 letter project".  This is a project intended to get more people involved to help the kids affected by 5.12 Sichuan earthquake. This project is later developed into a dedicated scholarship project. When it is initiated, we drafted a two-page background information survey and personal information disclosure form.  I naively thought this is a big part of job done.

However, I did not realize at the time that the majority of our audience in China do not understand the reason why we need further information after two years and what kind of information we need. Further, they did not fully understand "personal information disclosure" clause.  Thanks goes to our volunteer, Fang Fang. She called each of the 150 students. She explained to them why we need to collect more background information, patiently communicates what the new project is about and describes the implication for the personal information disclosure. She then coordinated collection of our two-page survey form to the students. She went extra step to go through all the letters,  read, and summarized each letter. This makes our work much easier. She further compiled an excel spreadsheet of student data.  In fact, Fang has been working with us for a long long time already on many different projects.

I never realized such a small step in a project can mean so much work...We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude... Thank you, Fang Fang and many other volunteers that help us to this date!