Projects

This project is to buy 34 bunk beds for the students who stay at A Yan Gou School in Tian Zhu Autonomous County Gansu Province to improve the boarding students’ accommodation conditions, so that the parents will not need to worry about the students’ poor condition at school.

The Australian Embassy funded this project

Drogar Ji is from Yunlang Village, Tan Shang Ling Township, Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Wuwei Region, Gansu Province. Currently she is studying towards her Associate’s degree at Qinghai Normal University, Xining City, Qinghai Province.

Project Location
A Yan Gou School is located in Tan Shan Ling Township, in the western part of Tian Zhu Autonomous County, Gansu Province; Tan Shan Ling Township is 60 kilometers from Tianzhu County Town and 145 kilometers from Lanzhou city, the provincial capital.  Tan Shan Ling is 230 kilometers from Xining, the capital of Qinghai province.

Population
In Tan Shan Ling Township, there are about 3,000 households and 13,458 people (4,658 men, 4,800 women, and 4,000 children). The students in A Yan Gou School are mostly from the following six villages: Wang Zhi Liang Gou, Si Tao Gou, Da Kuo Tan, Zhu Cha, Tian Tang and Gu Cheng.

School background
A Yan Gou School was established in 1951 and is the only Tibetan school in Tan Shan Ling Township. In April, 2008 the government in Tan Shan Ling decided to combine all the primary schools with A Yan Gou School.  Now, all the students in Tan Shan Ling Township who want to study Tibetan come to A Yan Gou School.
There are 19 teachers, and 120 students (59 girls and 61 boys), among these students 88 are boarding students, living at the school.  In total, there are 7 grades, and there are 3 major subjects like Tibetan, Math, and Chinese, but they also teach some other subjects such as society, Nature, and English.
The government gave the school 10 bunk beds and some stoves, but 10 bunk beds are not enough for 88 students.  The students still need 34 bunk beds.

Education
In these six villages, (Wang Zhi Liang Gou, Si Tao  Gou, Da Kuo Tan, Zhu Cha, Tian Tang and Gu Cheng) 10% of the people are literate (not including students). Elderly men make up most of this small percentage.  There are also a few monks who can write and read Tibetan. On average, one child in each family currently attends school. But some people still think it’s just  a waste of money and time, as they fear their children won’t be able to find a job.  Some parents think education is useless, so they ask their children to do house work and earn money at the home. About 50% of the students are primary students, 35% of the students are studying in middle school, 10% of them are in high school, and 5% of them are in universities.

Herding
The weather and the altitude are similar in all six of these villages, so the herding situation is the same. Three years ago, 85% of the people in these six villages made their living by herding; they owned yaks, sheep, cows, and goats. With the exception of pigs, these animals are used for milking and working, not for eating. Pigs are owned for eating. Villagers can sell butter and cheese and each family can earn about 700-800 RMB per year.  They use this money to buy daily needs, send their children to school, and purchase medicine for their livestock.

Agriculture
About 5 years ago, 8% of the families in these villages owned their own farming land, each of the families owned around 8-9 mu land. They grew wheat, potatoes, radishes, peas, and barley once a year. They were able to produce 170-180 jin of barley from one mu land. At that time they could earn about 700-800 RMB per year.
Since 2002, the government planted trees on the farming land leaving the families just 1-2 mu.  This small amount of land is not enough to support the families.  The government does provide some compensation for farm land used to plant trees, around 200 jin barley per mu, but this is still not enough to support a family
The other villages are same as A Yan Gou village.

Cash income
In these six villages, about 85% people live on animal husbandry, earning around 700-800 RMB per year per household from selling sheep, yaks, butter, and wool.  8% of the people live on agriculture, and 7% of people earning money from doing labor work outside their villages.
Family members, including adults, who are able to do construction work go to the Township or the County Town and earn money doing manual labor.  Workers can earn 1000 RMB (not including the food fee and living fee in where they work).

Project Goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 34 bunk beds for the students who stay at A Yan Gou School.
The overarching goal of this project is to improve the boarding students’ accommodation conditions.

Beneficiaries
There are 88 students who can directly benefit from this project.  There are 19 teachers and around 200 villagers who can indirectly benefit from this project, because they will not need to worry about the students’ poor living conditions.

Problems
1. No money to buy beds
Before the government combined the primary schools with A Yan Gou School, the school had no bunk beds for the students. After the government combined all the primary schools together, it gave the school 10 bunk beds. However, 10 beds are not enough for the 88 boarding students who stay at the school.  The school spent money buying stoves so the students will be warm in the winter time.  As a result, the school does not have money to buy extra beds for the students.
2. Many injured students
So far around 73% of the students are boarders, and the school does not have enough money to buy beds for students. Usually, four students need to share one bunk bed; with two students crowding onto the top and two students on the bottom bunk.  This crowding can lead to injuries, especially if students are having bad dreams or trying to roll over to make space.
3. Influence students’ study
If four students share one bed, they cannot sleep very well at night because of the narrow bed. It affects the students’ studying in school. For example, they don’t sleep very well at night, then they fall sleep during class or they are very sleepy during the class which makes it hard to pay attention to what the teachers teach. These problems adversely affect students’ studying.
4. Parents not willing to send the young children to school
Because of limited beds for each student, some parents think it is not safe to send their children to school. So the parents are very worried to send their kids to school and some even keep their children at home because they are so afraid of the conditions.
5. Health problem
Due to overcrowding of bunk beds it is very easy for students to pass illnesses to each other, such as colds and pneumonia. For example, if one of the students gets a cold, then other one who shares one bed with he or him, will also get a cold; sometimes both of them can’t attend the classes.  Also, because of the culture, people are very shy to change their clothes even with their friends, so for those primary school students, they can’t change their clothes on their beds, because they are sharing the beds with others.

Benefits
If the every student can have their own bed, then many problems will be solved:
1. This project can help the school to get the students their individual beds. The school master and the teachers don’t need to worry about buying enough beds to the students.
2. If the students have their own beds, then they don’t need to share with other students, so they will not fall down from the bed and get injured.
3. The students can sleep very comfortably during the night, so they will not fall asleep during the classes and they can listen carefully to what the teachers teach.
4. This project can help to relieve parents’ worries about sending their children to school and it will change some of the parents’ thoughts about sending their children to school.
5. If they have their own bed, they don’t need to sleep with others. The chances of spreading infectious disease will be lessened.   Also, students can have some private time; they can change their clothes very easily.

The steps of the project
1) Asked the teachers and some students what do they need and decided to do a bunk bed project for this school.
2) Talked with other project managers who have experience working on this type of project.
3) Hold a meeting with the teachers and some students, and ask them what kind of beds do they need, and decide who will take care of those beds.
4) Find out the transportation fee and the price of bed and write proposal.
5) Receive funds
6) Purchase bunk beds from Yan Tan Jia Ju Market in Lanzhou City.
7) Hire a truck to transport those beds to the school.
Distribute those beds to the school. Take pictures.
9) Write a final report.
10) Send the report and the pictures to the donor.

Timeframe
It will take about 12 days to complete this project.
1 day: contact the school teachers for purchasing beds
3 days: Arrive Lan Zhou City with two school teachers
2 days: Purchase beds and hire a truck for transporting beds
1 day: Transport the beds to school
2 day:  Display beds in the dormitories
3 days: take photos, interview teachers and students for final report

Governmental approval
On 2008, June 1^st, the project manager discussed this project with the school leader (Ma Yu Xi he is a Mongol) and several teachers, 3 women (Ma Zhong Feng，Duo Shang Ji，Qing Cuo Mao), and 3 men (Ma Yu Xi，Ma Cai Dan，Ta Gui Xi). They said they were very happy that the project manager is planning to do this bunk bed project and encouraged the project manager to try her best to complete this project.

Gender equality
The project will be implemented and managed by the students and the teachers in A Yan Gou School. We chose 6 teachers (3 women and 3 men) and 8 students, (4 boys and 4 girls) for to be on the bunk bed committee.  In this case both men and women equally have a chance to make decisions together.
In addition, the project manager can be a very positive role model for the villagers and students especially for females so that the girls can also achieve big things like implementing projects in their home areas.

Detailed Budget

Note: The school will use the teachers’ room for the students; because there is no enough dormitories for the students, so two teachers will share one dormitory together, and let the students use the teachers’ rooms as dormitories. So there are 3 dormitories contributed as local contribution to this project.

Sustainability
This project is sustainable because the beds are made of metal which means the beds can last more than ten years. A teacher called Ma Cai Dan, who knows how to fix and repair things, promised that he would be very responsible for repairing the beds if the beds become broken in the future.

Past experience
Drogar Ji completed a second-hand clothing project which was donated by Ms. Sue Bishop at the British consulate in Shanghai. More than 100 local villagers from A Yan Gou village and She Qiao village benefited from this project in 2006. Als in 2009, she completed a solar flashlights project which was donated by Naljor Prison Dharma Service

The map of the project location