Fund 1000 Scholarships in Rural China for a Year

It has been a long time SOAR tradition for the volunteers to visit students in China every other year. This year, 16 SOAR volunteers visited three high schools and two middle schools in Hunan and Guizhou provinces in southern China. During the trip, they interacted with about 100 students and also visited a dozen students at their homes.

Huaihua County in Hunan Province has been cooperating with SOAR as partners for 22 years. In 1995, SOAR selected a local teacher Ms. Wu, winner of a prestigious national teaching award, as the Scholarship Nominator there, and she has always acted with highest integrity and moral standards when selecting the most qualified students ever since. For 22 years, she helped more than one hundred excellent students from underprivileged low income families to apply and receive SOAR Scholarships. At the age of 79, she still visits students in person and is not afraid of walking on the unpaved mountain roads. She also mentored Ms. Liu, who is the Principle of the school, to become the next SOAR Scholarship Nominator. Ms. Liu was also born and raised in a very poor family locally, and returned to her home town to teach after college.

A volunteer Liwen wrote about a SOAR student Yuewen. Yuewen’s family is very poor, but she is very diligent. Her home is very clean and tidy, with walls covered by Yuewen’s academic awards. The grapefruits her family grew are so tasty. Her grandma is good at making bamboo hats, which sells for 11 RMB, or 1.5 dollars, per hat. Their entire family members are optimistic and welcoming.

After visiting students’ families, volunteers had a meeting with the students at a local high school. One of our volunteers, Lisa, wrote, “I felt delighted to finally meet Shengsen from Huaitie No.1 High School, who came a long way to meet us. He was one of the students that caught my eyes when reviewing students’ applications last year. After Shengsen’s parents passed away from a tragic car accident, he and his younger sister became orphans. Later their aunt adopted them, but her own family also suffered from financial difficulties. He studied very hard and was admitted to the top-ranked high school locally. During our conversation, he was relatively shy just like most of our SOAR students, but he is hopeful about his future“.

Although the Chinese government works very hard to support poor students in rural areas with high quality school buildings and facilities, the study materials, boarding, food, and other costs are still huge burden for the extremely poor families like Shengsen’s and Yuewen’s. From one school, there are so many students need help, not to mention the vast mountainous rural areas! Professor Scott Rozelle of Stanford University is a development economist who devoted more than 30 years of his career in researching Chinese economic development. In a November 2014 study he wrote, ”only 37 out of 100 rural students who begin junior high school will graduate from secondary schooling (14 from vocational; 23 from academic high).” In 2017, He pointed out - 63% of rural children unable to attend high school, impacting the future development of China. He cautioned that even as the second largest economy in the world, China has still been suffering from the Middle-Income Trap, the fundamental problem is the very low education level in China’s rural areas. Therefore, SOAR’s work is still urgently needed in China! As SOAR volunteers, we will work diligently to help poor Chinese students in rural areas to go back to school.

As donors to SOAR, you can help us to achieve that mission. Our next fundraising engagement will be GlobalGiving's #GivingTuesday event this year on Tuesday, November 28th, 2017, when there will be potentially $75,000 proportional match and $25,000 bonus available for all participating charity organizations in the 24 hour period. Stay tuned for our year-end SOAR donation appeal by email and donate to SOAR on November 28th on GlobalGiving!