Project Manager: Gasong Lhamo (Sandy)
This Project is to buy 523 books, 322 Chinese books and 201 Tibetan books for Xinzhai School’s library so that students could use their spare time wisely by reading various interesting books to expand their general knowledge.
Arizona Friends of Tibet and Shem’s private donors funded this project
Gasong Lhamo is from Xinzhai Village, Yushu County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province in China. She is currently working on her BA in the English Training Program (ETP) at Qinghai Normal University.
What?To provide 523 books for Xinzhai School in Xinzhai Village. 635 students and 39 teachers directly benefit from this project and more than 500 households get benefit indirectly from this project.
Who? Xinzhai School in Xinzhai Village, Jiegu Township, Yushu County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China
Photos of the project implementation
The above two pictures show us transporting the books to the library and unpacking them.
After the books were transported to the school, the headmaster, the teachers and the students are putting the books on the newly arranged bookshelves.
The above photos show the students enjoying the new books.
The above photos show the teacher and the headmaster discussing the new books, while the students read the new books with great joy and excitement.
In the picture is school library manager，she is going to be responsible for this library. She will sign up the students who borrow books from the library. While we put the books in the bookshelves, she signed all the names of the books because that could help her to manage the library well.
The school headmaster was looking at the new books from the project with the students.
Project Summery
Project Title: Book Project for Xinzhai School
Project Goal: The immediate goal of this project is to buy 523 books of 322 Chinese books and 201 Tibetan books, for Xinzhai School’s library. The overarching goal of this project is to support for the use of the students’ spare time wisely by providing access to books that will expand their general knowledge.
Project location: This project is located in Xinzhai Village, Jiegu Township, Yushu County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. Xinzhai Village is about 3 km away from Jiegu Township. It is southwest of Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province. There are about 879 km between Xining and the project location.
Total beneficiaries: 635 students and 39 teachers directly benefit from this project, and more than 500 households get benefit indirectly from this project.
Implementation organization/individual: Project manager Ghasong Lhamo, the school head master Gengsong Nyema, Library manager Den Zen Cho Sgrun, the teachers of Xinzhai School, the students of Xinzhai School and Shem Women’s Group.
Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group.
Funds received: Source, Amount and Date received
Shem Women’s Group distributed 6,371 rmb which is 80% of the funds to the project manager on July 18th, 2009. The project manager will get 20% of the funds from Shem Women’s Group after she finished the project.
Details of project activities
1. Contacted the school leader and discussed the project.
2. Requested the school leader to hold a meeting with the teachers and students to identify the kinds of books are needed and who would be responsible for the sustainability of the project and how the project could be sustainable.
3. Went to a bookstore to check with the book prices.
4. Determined the transportation fee for delivering the books.
5. Wrote the proposal.
6. Secured funds
7. Project funds were received from Arizona Friends of Tibet on July 13th, 2009.
8. On July 14th, 2009, a meeting was held with School Headmaster to decide a good time to go to Xining to purchase the books.
9. On July 15th, 2009 equipment (desks, chairs and bookshelf) for the library was prepared.
10. On July 16th, 2009, the project manager traveled to Xining for getting the funds from the managing group, Shem Women’s Group.
11. On July18th, 2009 the project manager received Arizona Friends of Tibet’s donation, which was distributed by Shem Women’s Group.
12. On July 19th, 2009, the project manager went to the Xining Bookstore to purchase all of the 523 books for 7,237.6 rmb. She also scheduled an appropriate time for transporting the books to the project location in Yushu County.
13. On July 20th, 2009, Teacher Senzhu transported all of the books to the Xining Bus Station.
14. On August 5th, 2009, the project manager transported the books to Xinzhai Village, Jiegu Township, Yushu County, Yushu Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province.
15. On August 11th, 2009, the School Headmaster, teachers and the students transported all of the books to the school library.
16. Took pictures.
17. Started to work on the final report
Project Finance
|
Original Budget |
Actual Cost |
|||||||||
|
Rece |
Item |
Donor |
Local |
Shem |
Total |
Donor |
Local Contri |
Shem Contri |
Total |
Diffe |
|
#1 & |
523 books* (including transpor |
7,63 |
3,395 |
0 |
11,0 |
7,63
|
3,395 |
0 |
11,0 |
-5.2
|
|
#3 |
Manage |
332 |
0 |
0 |
332 |
316.6 |
0 |
0 |
316.6 |
+ |
|
|
Manage |
0 |
0 |
500 |
500 |
0 |
0 |
500 |
500 |
0 |
|
Total |
|
7,96 |
3,395 |
500 |
11,8 |
795 |
3,395 |
500 |
11,8 |
*+ |
All figures are in rmb.
*+10.2rmb is left from the project manage expenses and the project manager needed less money for managing than originally planned so 10.2rmb is left from the donor contribution.
*Many of the book titles are changed, and the project manager couldn’t find the original books as listed in the proposal. So the number of the books is also changed, and the project manager brought 523 books, which is 24 more books than what we originally proposed.
In the proposal, I wrote that Teacher Abo would be responsible for the library. Since he retired from the school, there is a new library manager, Den Zen Cho Sgrun. The headmaster also decided that each homeroom teacher would be responsible for the books that are borrowed by their students. The multiple levels of responsibility for the books could promote greater sustainability of this book project.
Difficulties and lesson learned
Difficulties
It was very difficult for the project manager to finish the project on time. The project manager received the funds on July 13th, 2009, and she bought the
books on July 19th, 2009. However, she was not able to deliver the books to the Xinzhai School library until August 5th, 2009, because on July 20th, 2009 the project manager had to go to Huangzhong for joining a teacher’s training. Thus, the project manager asked one of the teachers from Xinzhai School to transport all the books to Xining bus station and stored there. After the project manager finished her training, she only herself delivered the books to Xinzhai School, but the school was having five days holiday at the time when project manager arrived, so she had to wait for five days to get the books to school.
Lessons learned
The project manager has learned many things by implementing this project. She thinks it is very important to consider everything very carefully when doing a project. She had to try to identify all the problems that she might encounter as she is implementing the project. For example, when the School Headmaster and the project manager were determining when we should purchase the books, he pointed out that it was very difficult for the school to provide a teacher to help the project manager to purchase books in Xining because the teacher cannot be absent from his classes. At that time, the project manager immediately agreed that she would go to Xining and purchase the books by herself. But when she got to Xining, purchasing more than five hundred books is not an easy thing to do. Also, after she finished purchasing the books, she had to go to Huangzhong for a teacher’s training. So she had to call the headmaster and discuss the new problem. Fortunately, at that time Teacher Senzhu had come to Xining for her training and she helped the project manager transport the books to Xining bus station. Then in August 5th, the project manager transported the books from Xining bus Station to Yushu County. Although she solved that problem, she thinks it is really important to carefully plan and write schedules before making any decisions.
Thank you letter
Receipts
#1
The receipt for all the books and it cost 7,237.6.
#2
This is the transportation fee for delivering books, it cost 400rmb.
#3
These are the transportation fees for the project manager to go the project site (Yushu) and came back to Xining and it is 316.6Rmb in total.
Original Proposal
Project Location
This project is located in Xinzhai Village, Jiegu Township, Yushu County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province in China. Xinzhai Village is about 3 km away from Jiegu Township. It is to the southwest of Xining City, which is the capital city of Qinghai Province. From Xining, it is about 879 km to the project location.
School Background
Xinzhai School was established in the 1980s. There are approximately 635 students (298 girls and 337 boys) and 39 teachers (23 men, 16 women); all the students are Tibetan. Formerly this was just a primary school, but in 2003 it changed into both primary and junior middle school. So the children can study 5 years as primary school and 3 years as middle school. In total, they study in this school for eight years. Xinzhai School is the only school in Xinzhai Village. More than half of the students are from Xinzhai Village. The rest are from Zhisang Village and Ganda Village because these two villages only have 5 or 6 households and therefore there are no schools in these two villages. Teachers are trying their best to help the students, but the students in this village still can’t compare with the well-equipped schools’ students in Yushu County town, especially since the school’s study and review material resources are limited. When the students attend senior high school in Yushu County town, they can’t even catch up with the teacher’s lessons, because their general knowledge is very weak. This causes the students to lose the confidence to learn more. So the improvement of school resources is of special significance to Xinzhai School. For the primary school students, the teachers are teaching Tibetan, Chinese, math, and English. For the middle school students, they teach physics, chemistry, Chinese, politics, Tibetan, English, math and history.
Population
Xinzhai Village is composed of six small groups and there are approximately 2,189 people from 438 households in Xinzhai Village. Among the total population of this village, there are 953 men, 750 women, and 486 children.
Education
In this village, 80% of the villagers know how to read and write Tibetan, because both men and women carve Tibetan scriptures on stones called Mani-stones. They villagers carve Mani-stones almost everyday. So gradually the villagers learn to speak and write Tibetan by carving Mani-stones. Only 40% of the villagers can write and read Chinese, which is not included in the school curriculum. In this village, there are 598 students who currently going to primary school, high school, and colleges, among them 232 students are girls and 366 are boys. 456 students attend primary school, (257 are boys and 199 are girls). 129 students attend in middle school (76 are boys and 53 are girls). Only 13 students are studying in college (8 boys and 5 girls.). Compared to other villages in this area, this village is very isolated from the outside world because the students do not have access to much information from other sources. The school also can not provide many current and temporary world information. Most of the villagers send their children to study in primary school. After the children graduate from the local primary school, parents ask their children to stay at home and carve Mani-stones and make money to support their families because the children are big enough to do such things.
Cash Income
Basically for Xinzhai Village, there are two ways that the local villagers can earn money. The first way to make money is to carve Mani-stones. Usually two or three people in each family are carving Mani-stone and they make around 2,000 to 3,000rmb in per year. Xinzhai villagers carve Six-sacred-syllables “Om Mani Pedme Hum,” images of deities, great adepts and otherTibetan texts or scriptures on smooth stone plates or rocks. Other pilgrims who come to visit the well-known Mani Heap, will buy these Mani-stones for good luck. Therefore Xinzhai villagers’ income is depended on it.
The Second way to earn cash income is to dig caterpillar fungus which is a kind of medical herb grown on high sea leveled mountains. Generally, each caterpillar fungus can be sold for 10 to 20rmb. The villagers usually need to go to a different county which will take three and half hours to get there. Recently, as the price of caterpillar fungus is raising, those counties only allow their local people to dig caterpillar fungus, and charge outsiders high taxes to dig caterpillar fungus on their land. Usually each person has to pay 3,000rmb for the tax. But there are still some families that go to dig caterpillar fungus during May. They come back in late June and each family can earn around 800rmb per year digging caterpillar fungus. Therefore most of the villagers think that carving Mani-stone is better than digging caterpillar fungus.
Averagely each family earns 6,000 to 7,000rmb per year. They need to spend pretty much around 4,500rmb on food, buying the stones for carving Mani stones, clothes, and school tuition fee for their children. Moreover they need to spend a relatively large amount of money on preparing for theTibetan New Year. This cost is around 2,000rmb to 2,500rmb. Therefore, in this case the villagers do not have any savings each year.
Agriculture
Xinzhai Village is an agricultural village, and there is no herding in the village, each family used to own 3-4 mu of field and they often only grow potatoes and barley. However from 2004, the local government decided to plan trees in the fields instead of growing crops and every year at the autumn, the government pay around 500rmb to 1,000rmb according to amount of lands the each family owns as a compensation for the loss their lands. At the present, each household just owns 1mu or 2mu to the farming lands which can not produce enough food to support their own families because of less land and limited rain recently. 80% of the households in this village abandoned their fields. Beside growing barley, the villagers also grow some potatoes in their yard. Every year the villagers can get around 700-800jin of barley and very few amount of potatoes.
The Project Goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 499 books, 309 Chinese books and 190 Tibetan books for Xinzhai School’s library. The overarching goal of this project is to use the students’ spare time wisely by reading various interesting books to expand their general knowledge.
Beneficiaries: 635 students and 39 teachers will directly get benefit from this project and more than 450 households will indirectly get benefit from this project.
Problems
1) Less Interest in Studying
In Xianzhai School, the students can only learn from the books which are provided by the school. Because of the lack of other books besides the textbooks, the school teachers hardly find any related books and visual books to help the students to understand the lessons thoroughly. Therefore the teachers must always talk in the class and give more and more explanations in order to let the students understand the lesson better. As time goes by, the students slowly get bored of having lecture classes. Obviously it causes many problems, such as the students skip classes very often and do not do their homework. All these problems are caused by the students have less and less interest in the classes.
2) Limited Knowledge of Outside World
Since Xianzhai School doesn’t have many reading books, the students are unable to get other reading books to expand their general knowledge. It is hard for the students to know what the world’s current important events are. For example, when the students encounter some problems and tough situations, they just do not have any ideas about how to solve the problems. This is because the students are isolated from modern society.
3) More Students Drop out of School
The University Entrance Examination is the biggest exam in China. It is also the most important turning point in one’s life. But since the students’ basic knowledge is not so strong, when they go to high school in Yushu County town, they can not compete with the students who come from well-equipped schools. Some of the students can’t even catch up with the lessons in high school. Obviously, when they are taking the entrance exams, they lack the general background knowledge of the world necessary to understand the context of the exam questions. As a consequence, the number of the students to pass the University Entrance Examination is very low. Each year, there is only one or two to pass this big exam.
4) Increase Family burdens
Society is full of competition in many ways, especially getting into good universities. In order to catch up with the students in well-equipped schools in Yushu County town, the school has realized that it is very essential to find out some extra materials or books to offer for the students to improve their knowledge. However they couldn’t find any other solution except to increase school tuition. Therefore, it becomes very difficult and a heavy burden for the parents since they couldn’t earn enough money for their living.
Benefits
1) Raise Interest in Studying
If there are books and other various studying materials, then the teachers could use the useful and updated studying resources to help the students to gain better understanding of the lessons. It will definitely help the class to be more active and the students to be more interested in attending the class.
2) Connected with the Outside World
If this project happens, there will be more books and the students can gain fresh and new information about what is going on in the outside world. As a result their views as well as their general knowledge will be expanded outside of the views of their textbooks.
3) More Students Attend School
If the school resourses improve, it is likely that more students will pass important exams, and go to better schools. The villagers will then know that they didn’t work in vain. After the students graduate from better schools, they will have access to better outside jobs. It will directly improve family incomes and conditions. Then, more parents will send their children to school. They will realize the importance of the education.
4) Decrease Family Burdens
If this project provides the books like study materials and so on, then the school does not need to increase school tuition fee, and the family burdens will be reduced.
Gender Equality
If this project is funded, it will mostly benefit girls because, in home area, parents think that it is useless to send girls to school. Instead, they always send the boys to school. Therefore the girls, who are attending school, always put a lot of effort on their study. However, it will not make much difference if the resources are limited in school. If the school has good study materials to offer the students, they’ll use these resourses to help them improve their studies; girls, especially, will use these to learn more because they want to show their parents that it is worthwhile to send them to school.
Governmental Support
The project manager, Gasong Lhamo has talked to the school leader, Gheng Song on September 10th 2008 about this project; he was very impressed with the project manager’s motivation of writing a book proposal for their school. He was very supportive gave full permission for preceding with this project.
The Steps of Project
1.Contact the school leader and discuss the project. (Done)
2.Request that the school leader to hold a meeting with the teachers and students to identify the kinds of books needed and who will be responsible for the sustainability of the project.(Done)
3.Go to bookstore to find out the price of the books.(Done)
4.Find out the transportation fee. (Done)
5.Write the proposal. (Done)
6.Secure donor’s funds
7.Purchase the books from Xining bookstore in Xining City, Qinghai Province.
8.Transport the books to Xinzhai School.
9.Carry the books to the school library and make sure the quantity of books.
10.Interview the teachers and the students and photograph the materials as the books are housed and used.
11.Visit some families and randomly interview some parents to check the progress and different in use of students’ leisure time that this project brought.
12.Write final report and send it to donor.
Timeframe
This project will take 25 days after the project is approved.
7 days for purchasing the books in Xining City bookstore.
9 days for transporting the books from Xining to Yushu town.
2 days for transporting the books from Yushu Town to Xinzhai Village.
7 days for distributing the books to the school and takeing photos to prepae the final report.
Project Budget
|
Item |
Quantity |
Donor Contribution |
Local |
Shem |
Total cost |
|
Tibetan |
190 |
1,474 |
0 |
0 |
1,474 |
|
Chinese books |
309 |
5,758.4 |
0 |
0 |
5,758.4 |
|
Desk |
15 |
0 |
555 |
0 |
555 |
|
Chair |
25 |
0 |
375 |
0 |
375 |
|
Classroom |
1 |
0 |
2,300 |
0 |
2,300 |
|
Book |
3 |
0 |
165 |
0 |
165 |
|
Transpor |
|
400 |
0 |
0 |
400 |
|
Management Expenses |
332 |
|
0 |
332 |
|
|
Management payment |
|
|
0 |
500 |
500 |
|
Total |
|
7,964.4 |
3,395 |
500 |
11859.4 |
Sustainability
The books will be purchased from Xining bookstore, which is the most well known bookstore in Xining City. Also, the store guarantees a return policy for at least 15 days. Therefore, we can exchange books that are not helpful to the students. In addition, the school has arranged for some middle school students to make sure that the students are returning the books on time if they borrow them. A teacher called Abou is going to be responsible for the library. For these reasons, this project will be sustainable and because all of the beneficiaries have hoped to have a library for long time, they made a promise that they will take care of the books like their own books.
Map of the project location
