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

Drolgar Jyid is from Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province, China.  She graduated from Qinghai Normal University with advanced proficiency in oral and written English and Tibetan, and currently she is working for One Earth Designs in Xining City, Qinghai Province.
What? Purchase 34 bunk beds for 88 students in A Yan Gou School.

Who? Students in A Yan Gou School which located in Tanshan Ling Township, Tianzhu Autonomous County, Wuwei Region, Gansu Province.
Photos of the project implementation

The workers are loading Bunk Beds on the truck in Lanzhou.

The truck stops on the way because of a car accident. After 10 hours waiting in the long queue the truck with bunk beds starts to move to the project location.

The students and the teachers are unloading bunk beds from the truck.

The beds are settled in both boys’ and girls’ dormitories.

Project summary
Project title: Bunk beds project for A Yan Gou School

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’ accommodations.

Location of project: A Yan Gou School is located in Tan Shan Ling Township, in the western part of Tian Zhu Tibetan 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.

Project beneficiaries: This project directly benefits 88 students. There are 19 teachers and around 200 villagers who can indirectly benefit from this project. The students have their own beds and they can sleep comfortably during the nights without any worries like falling down. During day timethey will not fall asleep in the classes and they can listen carefully to what the teachers teach. Moreover, it helps those students to study well in the school.

Implementation organization/individual: The village leader (Xu deying) and the leader of the Educational Bureau of Tanshan Ling Township (Niu yung feng), Drolgar Jyid (project manager) and Shem Women’s Group.

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Amount and date received
On March 15^th 2010, the project manager Drolgar Jyid received 80% of the funds, which was 13,976 RMB from Shem Women’s Group as the first installment of the funds. Shem Women’s Group will distribute the final 20% of the funds (3,494 RMB) as the second installment when the project manager finishes the final report.

Details of project activities

• Called the school leader and informed them of the project approval.
• Phoned the school leaders to update them about the situation at the project site to check if the project could be implemented, especially considering the road conditions.
• Phoned Shem office to update them about project implementation.
• Called the school leaders and decided on the date to start implementation.
• Traveled to Lanzhou City to purchase the bunk beds.
• Signed the contract and purchased the beds.
• Called A Yan Gou School to clean the beds which they contributed.
• Transported the 34 beds from Lanzhou City to Tianzhu County Town.
• Transported the beds to the project site.
• Held the meeting with the teachers and students in the school to distribute 34 beds and explained how to combine the parts together to make a complete bed, etc.
• Visited the receivers and conducted interviews.
• Came back to Xining City to scan photos and receipts
• Translated the school’s letter of thanks
• Worked on the final report

Project Finance

Note*+26 RMB: This was left from the donor contribution to the project because the transportation fee for the bunk beds was less than the original estimate, so 26 RMB is left over.

Difficulties and lessons learned from the project

Difficulties
Based on the project managers former experiences in managing projects, she was able to implement the project very successfully and did not meet with many problems. The few difficulties that she met are listed below:
First, in the project area there are many coal mines, and the main road from Tanshan Ling Township to Huazang Si County Town is the same road that people use to transport coal from the mines to other cities. It is a dangerous road and many accidents happen there. . So when the project managers and co-managers transported beds to A Yan Gou School, there was an accident that created a long line of cars, buses and tractors on the road. They waited for 4 hours in the snow without having any food to eat.
Due to the cold and windy weather at the project area, the project manager got sick after they transported beds to school, which kept her in bed with an IV for three days.

Lessons learned
During implementation of this project, the project manager has learned a few things that will help her in implementing other projects in the future.
· Keep in touch with the local leaders on a regular time base, even after of project approval, in order to make sure the information on the project proposal is valid.
· Make sure not only to base the information on one person’s statement. To get a full picture, one has to collect the information from multiple sources.

Interviews

Drolgar Jyid (Project manager): As a teacher, how do you feel about  those beds? Are they really very helpful?
Ma Tsedan（One of teachers): Firstly, I am representing all of our teachers and students to say thanks for the help. Of course they are very helpful, as a teacher, we have a lot of responsibility for all of our students, we need to take care of them, make sure they are safe in their beds without their parents.

Drolgar Jyid(Project manager): Do you think those beds can be used for a long time?
Duo Drojyid（One of teachers）: Yeah, the quality of those beds is very high compared with the beds we had before, and also those beds are wider than before.

Drolgar Jyid (Project manager): Are you happy with those beds?
Around 8 students (both boys and girls): Yes.
Drolgar Jyid (Project manager): Can you tell me why?
Qing Drolma dkr (grade six): We don’t need to share beds with other students and also we can put our own stuff on the beds, so we don’t lose them very easily.
Drolgar Jyid (Project manager):  Do you have some other things to say?
Yang Dbadan (grade five): We can sleep well during the night.

Letter of appreciation

Translation of thank you letter

Most dear donors,
I would like to represent A Yan Gou School to express our deepest appreciation for your great concern and enormous support for us. Thanks for your generosity in supplying us with 34 bunk beds. These 34 bunk beds were received by students who are staying at the school. We will not forget your compassion and generosity. All of us want to express our most sincere thanks to you again and again.

Best wishes!
Sincerely
Rashu Village Committee

Receipts
#1

The total amount of money paid for 34 bunk beds (16,320 RMB)

#2

This is total transportation fee from Lanzhou City to the Tianzhu County Town. (400 RMB)

#3

This is the transportation fee (310 RMB) from Huazang si to A Yan Gou Primary School. (I couldn’t get the receipts from this trip; people don’t use receipts in such a small town.)

#4 The project management expenses:

This is the taxi fee for the project manager during implementing the project and it is 10 RMB.
#5

These receipts above are the trips fee for the project manager Drolgarjyid and the other 4 project managers from the school (the teachers) from Lanzhou to Huazang si during implentation of the project and it is 371 RMB.

#6

This is the trip fee for the project manager from Huazang  to Xining and it is 33 RMB.

The Original Proposal
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.
8) 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

This project is to buy 166 Chinese and English books for Niandu School to improve the students’ study level, promote gender equality by providing the same materials for both girls and boys, and create access to more information on a variety of educational topics.

Shem’s private donor funded this project

Sonamtso is from Lhaka Village, Naindu Township, Regong County, Rmalho Tibetan autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. She is currently working towards associated degree in English at the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program.

What? Buy 166 books (114 Chinese and 52 English books) for Niandu School.

Who? Niandu primary school from Lhaka village, Niandu Township, Rebgong County, Huangnan Prefecture, Qinghai province, China

Photos of the project implementation

The project manager Sonamtso and the school leader moved the books to school library and displayed the books on the empty shelves.

Students are helping to put the books on the empty book shelf.

Project manager, the woman in yellow coat, is helping the students to put the books on the shelf.

Sonam zhuoma is a Tibetan teacher and she gives suggestions to the students about which book they should read and which books are suitable for their level.

These notebooks are used to list student’s name, date and book name when students want to borrow books.

School leader is recording students name list while another teacher is arranging the books. .

Project Summary

Project title: Book Project for Niandu School

Project Goals: The ultimate goal of this project is to buy 166 Chinese and English books for Niandu School. The overarching goal of this project is to improve the students’ study level, promote gender equality by providing the same materials for both girls and boys, and create access to more information on a variety of educational topics.

Project location: Niandu School is located in the center of Niandu Township, in the Northern part of Regong County, Oinghai Province and was established in 1952. Niandu Township is about 7 kilometers from Rebgong County and from Rebgong County to Xining (the capital city of Qinghai province) city there are about178 kilometers.

Total beneficiaries: This book project directly benefits 188 students and teachers from the Niandu Primary school and it indirectly benefit about 1500people, including the people in Lhaka village.

Implementation organization/individual: Sonamtso (Lucille), Sonamtso (the school leader) and Shem Women’s Group.
Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Source, Amount, and Date Received.
The project manager received 80% of grant which is 2,472.4 from Shem Women’s Group on June 10th 2009 and she will receive the rest money after she completed the project, 20 % grant is 618RMB, so the total grant for this project is 3090.4Rmb.

Details of the project activities

1. June 15^th 2008, held a meeting with all the teachers to discuss the problems of the school.
2. June 16^th 2008, asked school leader or other teacher the possible solution for the project, and asked both teachers and students what kind of books they need.
3. June 17^th 2008, collected information about the school
4. July 20^th 2008, found out the books price and figured out the transportation fee.
5. August 28^th 2008, wrote a project proposal.
6. May 15^th 2009, the project is approved.
7. June 2nd 2009, informed the news to School.
8. June 5th 2009, discussions took place with the school leader Sonamtso and other teachers regarding the preparation of the library room.
9. June 12th 2009, purchased books from Xinhua bookstore in Xining city.
10. June 17^th 2009, rented a car and transported the books to Niandu School. Also took pictures of the project and interviewed the recipients.
11. June 20^th 2009, wrote the final report with some interviewed photos and receipts.

Project Finance

Note: (1) actually transportation fee is 450 and I planned that half of the transportation fee (200) would be paid by the local school. But the school leader Sonamtso knows the driver, so we just paid the 250 for the transportation, which means we didn’t use the local contribution for transportation fee. So among left over 233.9 rmb, 200rmb left from the local contribution and the project manager retuned it to the school leader Sonamtso and 33.9rmb (left over from donor contribution) will be returned to Shem Women’s Group.
(2) All figures are in rmb

Delays, Difficulties, and lessons leaned
Delays
On June 12th 2009, the school leader and I purchased books from Xinhua bookstore in Xining city. We discussed that we should transport the books on June 13^th, but the problem was we couldn’t find a vehicle because they said they don’t have drive license. Therefore we got the vehicle on June 15^th 2009, and we rented a car and transported the books to Niandu School.

Difficulties
When the project manager, Sonamtso begins to write the project proposal, she encountered several problems, for example, she finished writing the proposal, but the budget section is incomplete. Therefore she called one of her friends who did the project before. They went to the Xinhua bookstore and listed the book names and prices, but the worker of the bookstore came to me and said; “if you do not stop to list book names, I will tear your lists on the notebooks.” I said; “some day I will buy those books. I beg you. Please. Again he said: how will you buy these books, you’re such a little girl. Don’t let me to see you again. If you do, I will let you not come to the bookstore.” He said and left with angry facial expression.

We went up to the third floor in order to avoid the book store worker. I almost finished half of the name list of the books; however, another man appeared in front of me, took my notebook and torn it, at that moment, I did not know what to do. So i told my friend, and let her to sat down on the floor and pretended to read some books within notebooks, Sonamtso went around the bookstore and memorized the book title and prices. In this way, I got all the book names and prices while I was writing the project proposal.

Lessons learned
Communication: the project manager must make everything clear before doing anything and talking to anybody who will involve in the project. In that case, you do not need to get things confused, for example, if the project manager did not discuss about what kind books the school needed before she brought them, then the books might not be practical for the school and the students which can lead the whole project to failure.

Patience: The biggest lesson that I have learned through this project are that time, and the most important thing is to face it calmly. Without patience, it would have been difficult to implement the project successfully. For example, when the project manager waited for the school leader to buy the books, she told her to wait for one day but the school leader did not come on the next day, so the project manager Sonamtso had to wait for her for two days but Sonamtso did not get frustrated because of the patience.

Interviews

Ø        First interview

Sonamtso (project manager): What are some benefits those books can bring to the school?

Sonamtso (the school leader): These books will help the students to improve their knowledge level.

Sonamtso: How are you going to let the students use those books?

Sonamtso (the school leader): I will make rules for both teachers and students to use the books. For example, one teacher gives suggestions that two teachers should be responsible of lending books to the students, one teacher can find the books and give to the students and other teacher can write the names of the books and names of the students on a sheet in order to manage books in very organized way. If the students lose the books, they should pay money or replace with same books.

Sonamtso: Will you let the students read in the library or at home?

Sonamtso (the school leader): The students can read the books at school library and also they can borrow the books and read at home.

Ø        Second Interview

Sonamtso (project manager Sonamtso )：Will you be responsible for the library?

Zhuoma cairang:(one of the student librarians)：Of course I will because it’s a great chance for me and the students to read more books.

Sonamtso:  Will you often let the students use the books?

Zhuoma cairang: Yes, I will because these books will help the students to improve their Chinese and English level and enrich their knowledge.

Sonamtso: Why do you want to be librarian?

Zhuoma cairang: It is a great pleasure to read different stories and books and help other students to get the books they want. I am honored to be librarian.

Ø        Third Interview

Sonamtso (the project manager): Do you like the books in the school library?

Tsomo(a student in Grade five from Niandu School): yes/ I have never seen so many English books, especially the storybooks. I am very curious to read them.

Sonamtso: Will you read the books from library often?

Tsomo: of course, because these books will increase my education level. Also I have my own schedule that I am going to read at least one book for each week.

Letter of appreciation

Translation of the thank you letter

Dear generous donor,

Thank you very much for donating the books to our school and it makes possible for the students to have access to read those books.

Our school is local based school; those books are not only the platform of knowing the outside world and also broaden their view. Besides these, the books greatly improve the students’ general knowledge and improve their reading skill.

The students are very fond of reading the books which are donated by you. Those books will help the students to enrich their knowledge. They can learn very good lessons like how to be a good person from the books. I represent all the students and teachers of this school to thank for your help and donation.

All the best,

                                      Niandu Primary School

                                      August 2009

Receipts

#1

This is the receipt of the books and they cost 2741.5rmb

#2

This is the transportation fee for the books from the Xining book store to Niandu school and it was 250rmb.

#3

The transportation fee for the project manager for going to Niandu School to interview and take photos and it was 32.5rmb.

This is also the transportation fee for the project manager for returning from the project site to the school in Xining and it was 32.5 rmb.

Original Proposal

Project location
This project is located in Niandu School. Niandu School is located in Lhaka Village, Niandu Township, Rebgong County (Tong Ren), Rmalho’ (Huang Nan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Niandu Township is about 7 kilometers from Rebgong County. Rebgong County is 178 kilometers from Xining (the capital city of Qinghai province).

Niandu school background
Niandu School is located in the center of the Niandu Township, in the northern part of Rebgong Autonomous County, Qinghai Province and was established in 1952. The school teaches to grade nine. There are 173 students (79 girls, 94 boys) and 15 teachers in Niandu School. Their salary for their work is 2,050 rmb per month. The students in the school study Mathematics, Chinese and Tibetan. Although the students need to study subjects like social studies, science and ideological education, schools in the countryside rarely teach them. In rural areas like Niandu School, children cannot afford the necessary textbooks and the teachers often lack the knowledge and skills to teach these subjects. Therefore, in Niandu School they only teach three core subjects. The children have no access to information outside of their core textbooks. Niandu School teaches English only for the sixth grade.There is only one teacher who teaches English. Also Niandu School sometimes hires temporary English teachers who only stay for about one semester or sometimes even one or two months.

Population
Niandu Township is located in the east central part of Qinghai Province, situated in northwest china, west of the Rong Bo River. There are 250 families in Lhaka village; the total population is approximately 1,500 (740 men and 620 women).

Education
In Lhaka village if each family has two sons, one of them is typically sent to the local monastery to become a monk. Sons who go to the monastery begin to learn how to write and read Tibetan. Traditionally, girls are kept at home to help the family do house chores. In this village only ten percent of young people are literate, having finished their nine years of compulsory education.
There are 198 school-aged children in the village. Among these only 58 children are attending school (10 university students, 18 high school students, 20 Middle school students and 10 primary students). The rest of the children stay at home to help their parents with household chores, farming and digging caterpillar fungus. Many villagers believe it is a waste of time and money to send their children to school. Some villagers believe that even if their children go to school they will not be able to get a good job.

Cash Income
All of the villagers in Niandu Township earn a living by farming. People usually earn money by selling their excess barley and earn about 300 rmb each year. However, most families only have two or four mu (one mu= 0.0666 hectares) of land, which is not enough for their living expenses.
People also earn money by doing construction work. Adults do construction work in the county town. Men can earn 45 to 50 rmb per day, but women are only paid 35 to 40 per day. The workers can earn at least 500 rmb in one month. Workers are not guaranteed this money because, and sometimes work group leaders abandon the workers without paying their owed wages.
People also can earn money from digging cater pillar fungus. Some villagers don’t let their children to go to school and ask their children to dig caterpillar fungus to earn money. Each day they can dig 15 caterpillar fungi, and each fungus can sell for 3 to 5 rmb. On average, a person can earn about 1000 rmb from digging for caterpillar fungus for one month (people from Niandu often dig for caterpillar fungus in distant places such as Yushu and Golok and must pay a land fee of around 1000 rmb for the privilege of digging in other people’s land).
In total, the average family can make a little over 1000 rmb in cash income per year. Families have to spend about 900 per year for electricity fees, water fees and living expenses. On average, families are only able to save 100 rmb per year. Families who have university students must borrow money to pay for their tuition.

Agriculture
Niandu villagers grow wheat, potatoes, barley, rapeseed and beans. The villagers only have one productive harvest each year due to limited fertilizer, rainfall and weather conditions. The villagers cannot irrigate their lands often because they have to pay a fee to water their fields. Each household shares 5 mu of land with the all of family members. One mu of agricultural land can produce around 500-600 jin of barley if the weather conditions are good. Some families have economic difficulties if their land is not productive and they cannot afford to buy fertilizer. These families are not able to harvest extra produce to supplement their income. In some cases, households are not even able to harvest enough to feed their family.

Herding
In all of Lhaka Village there are only about 10 livestock. Most villagers sold their livestock because there was not enough grass for the livestock to eat in the surrounding mountains. 80% families do not have any livestock and the other 20% are relatively rich and only have several cows. The families who do have livestock are not able to sell dairy due to the poor grazing conditions.

Project Goal
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 166 Chinese and English books for Niandu School. The overarching goal of this project is to improve the students’ study level, promote gender equality by providing the same materials for both girls and boys, and create access to more information on a variety of educational topics.

Problems
1. No books: A lack of study material affects students’ results on important advancement exams, and with out many books to read students will not be able to improve their knowledge. In Niandu School children just carry around their textbooks and do not have access to any other reading materials such as magazines and books for free reading. Also when they graduate from school or transfer to different schools, they are disadvantaged. Compared with others students, they have never had the opportunity to learn about subjects like social sciences and the environment. Niandu School does not teach these subjects because they do not have the appropriate teaching materials.
2. Low literacy skills: The school cannot provide books for the students to read other than textbooks. The learning environment for literacy is impoverished. Students just memorize things from their textbooks. This has a negative impact on their motivation to learn how to read and write.
3. No money to buy books: For the poor families, they try their best to send their children to school, but they have no much money to buy other study materials like reading books for their children. Even if they could afford one book, they could not afford to do this very often.
4. Difficult to buy books: If students could afford to buy a book they would need to walk to the county town, which is about 7 kilometers away from school. Also the road to the county town is in poor condition; there are many bumps and the cars or other vehicles pass by very fast. Students can easily become injured on the way.
5. Lack of interest in teaching: In Niandu School, teachers have little motivation to teach because of the school’s poor conditions. Students constantly review the textbooks but show little improvement. Teachers do not have access to other educational material to enrich their teaching. Gradually the teachers lose their interest in teaching.

Benefits
1. Textbooks will not be the only books students have access to and they will have more books to read. Thus students will have more interest in studying.
2. Access to more reading materials will improve students’ literacy skills and give them a better chance to do well on their entrance exams. Also, if students have access to more reading material, they will have a better chance to learn more about other places and people, helping students have a better understanding of this world.
3. Families will not need to worry about not being able to buy books for their children and students in the school can read books continuously.
4. If the students have access to books in the school, then they will not need to walk to Rebgong county town in order to buy books. Also, parents will not need to worry about their children’s safety.
5.Teachers will have more access to teaching material to enrich their lessons. Teachers will also be more motivated to plan interesting lessons, which will lead to better teaching. Also, if students are more interested in going to school this will make teachers more motivated to teach in Niandu School.

Beneficiaries
This book project will directly benefit 188 students and teachers from the school and it will indirectly benefit about 1500people, including the people in Lhaka village.

Gender equality
Generally in my area, the boys can study in a monastery during the holiday time but girls cannot join the monastery to study. This project will balance this current gender inequality by providing access to books for both boys and girls.
Also I, as the project manager of this book project, will encourage girls to study hard and serve as a good role model for girls. Villagers often look down on girls and they do not think girls are able to accomplish these kinds of project. If this project is completed then villagers’ opinions about girls might change, and this project might bring a new perspective on women in the village.

Government support
In July 2008, the project manager talked about this project with the village leader, Chenpal. Both of us had a meeting with a local government leader, Renchen. He gave me full permission to go forward with this project and encouraged me to do it.

The steps of project
1. Held a meeting with all the teachers to discuss the problems of the school. (Done)
2. Asked school leader and other teachers about possible solution for the project. (Done)
3. Collected information about the school. (Done)
4. Asked both teachers and students what kinds of books do they need. (Done)
5. Found out the books’ price. (Done)
6. Figured out the transportation fee. (Done)
7. Write a proposal. (Done)
8. Funds received.
9. Buy books from Xinghua bookstore.
10.Transport the books.
11.Distribute the books to school.
12.Hold a meeting in the school to discuss the sustainability of the book project.
13.Take pictures of books when project is completed.
14.Write final report and send it to the donor with pictures.

Time frame
This project will take around 8 days
2 days: buy the books from Xinghua bookstore in Xining city, Qinghai Province.
3 days: transport the books from Xining to Rebgong County and distribute the books for the Niandu School. Hold a meeting with villagers, teachers and students how to protect the books. Take photos of the book project.
3 days: write the final report.

Project Budget

Donor Contribution is 3090.4 RMB

Local contribution: 610 (One teacher and two students will volunteer be librarian. They will responsible to manage library running successful.)

Sustainability
Firstly, I as the project manager will ensure the books purchased are of good quality. Additionally, the teachers and students will work together to take responsibility of the books. The books will be stored in the school at the school library. When the books are distributed, teachers will make a schedule and let students to borrow books every day. Also, the school librarian, book manager and teachers will enforce strong rules for both teachers and students to follow when they need to borrow the books. If any one loses or damages a book, he or she will need to pay for the book’s replacement. Finally, if any of the library staff members are found to be neglectful of their duties, new library staff will be chosen.

Map of the project location

Photos of Niandu School

These are the current textbooks on the school bookshelf.

This is where students want to read books. These are the current textbooks on the school bookshelf.

All these books are texts books from grade one to grade six.

This is one of the classrooms in Niandu School.

This is Niandu School gate.

This Project is to buy 445 books for Dorning primary school including 165 Tibetan books, 217 Chinese books and 63 English books to improve the students’ general knowledge about the outside world, and create higher possibilities to pass entrance exams for attending middle school and high school.

Shem’s Private Donor Funded this project

Jiakmo Tsering is from Dorning Village, Yalang Township, Rebgong County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, and China. Currently she is studying for her BA degree in English at Qinghai Normal University.

What?  To buy 445 books (165 Tibetan, 217 Chinese and 63 English books) for Dorning Primary School in Rebgong County, Qinghai Province, China.

Who?  Dorning Primary School, Ya Lang Township, Rebgong County, Qinghai Province, China.

 Photos of project implementation

The project manager bought the books for the school from the Xining book store and the teachers are browsing through the books.                                                    

A villager voluntarily helps us transport the books from the county town to Dorning village.

The school headmaster and a school teachers are calculate the budget and check the receipts.
Project summary

Project title: Book Project for Dorning Primary School

Project goal: The immediate goal of this project is to buy 445 books for Dorning Primary School including 165 Tibetan books, 217 Chinese books and 63 English books. The overarching goal of this project is to improve the students’ general knowledge and better prepare them to pass the entrance exam for attending middle school and high school.

Location of the project: This project is located in Dorning Village, Ya Lang Township, Rebgong County, Qinghai Province, China. Dorning Village is located about 200 km from Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province.

Total beneficiaries: This book project directly benefited 143 students and 11teachers in Dorning Primary School . Approximately 800 villagers in Dorning Village indirectly get benefit from this project.

Implementation organization/individual
Jiakmo Tsering (Kristina), Shem Women’s group, Teacher Dorji and Kli Ben.

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Source, Amount, and Date Received
Shem Women’s Group distributed 4,741.76RMB (80% of the project money) to the project manager, Jiakmo Tsering  on 7^th July 2009.  Jiakmo Tsering will get the remaining funds, 1,185.44 rmb (20% of the project money), from Shem after completing the project.

Details of the project activities

1) At the beginning of April 2008, the project manager contacted the villagers to find out their urgent needs and discovered the difficulties in the school.

2) Contact the teachers and collected information about the project.

3) June 2008, the project manager identified the price of the books in the Xining book store and the Xining bus station book store.

4) July 2008, collected information about the village, the school background and received the government’s permission.

5) Starting July 2008, the project manager began to write the proposal and the Shem Staff edited the proposal.

6) May 2009, the project was funded .

7) July 18^th 2009, the project manager purchased the books and transport them to Dorning Primary School.

8) July 21^st, 2009, held a meeting with the teachers and the students to determine who would and how to manage the books.  During this meeting we also established the library rules.

9) July 22^nd 2009, took photos and had a meeting with the students.
10) July 23^rd,2009, the project manager started to write the final report.
Project finances

All figures are in rmb

Delays, Difficulties, and lessons learned
Delays
The book project was funded during May 2009, but there was a conflict between Dorning Village and Sha Brang Village over some land.  At that time, students had a 20 day holiday, but because of the conflict they could not return to school on time.  The school had to extend the the holiday by ten days, which delayed the project for one month.

Difficulties
At the starting date of the project, the villagers thought the project manager was just doing her homework, so they did not cooperate with her and did not take her seriously. As a result, during the project’s implementation, she faced difficulties collecting information about the village. Another problem arose when she went to buy the books.  The prices of the books increased between writing the proposal and the time of purchase.  Also, the number of the books she needed was not available in the book store. The project manager revised the budget and revised the book orders; however, the final budget ended up the same as originally proposed.

Lessons learned
While implementing of the book project, one thing which the project manager learned was that one needs to be responsible, otherwise it is very difficult to complete the project on time. Communication is the key to solving problems, especially when the villagers did not believe she was actually implementing a real project.  She has to learn how to convince them, build her credibility and gain their trust and respect.  Much of this required speaking with them again and again. During the project’s implementation, she also learned about the importance of cooperation. She knew without villagers’ and school teachers’ support, it would  be very hard for her to complete the project successfully. She learned that she needs to prepare for unexpected things at anytime. Those experiences taught her how to be a more responsible person, effectively communicate with different types of people and how to deal the difficulties.

Interviews

Guru Dorji

He is ten years old and in grade three. When the project manager asked him whether he is happy with the new books, he earnestly said that he is very happy with the cartoon books.

Children from grade six, five and three

These are children in grade six, five and three. When the project manager transported the books to the school, they were waiting at the gate. The project manager asked them how they enjoyed the books. They responded that the Chinese books are little bit difficult, but the Tibetan and English books are appropriate for their level.

Thank you letter

Translation of the thank you letter

Dear Benevolent Donor:

Dorning Primary School is located on a mountain. Our education and life condition is inferior to others, but with your donors help and support, we received  a lot of books for our children which pave an excellent path for our future generations.

When the school received the books, all the students burst into happiness and felt very excited. Through this letter, our school is represented, the whole of the school teachers and students say thank you to your foundation. We will neverforget your gratitude and we promise that we will do a good job with those new and colourful books. From now on, we do not need to be concerned about the materials, but can focus on our education. We believe that we will try our best to improve our school’s quality.

So here all the teachers and students wish all the Shem members and the donor the best, and we would love to say thank you very much for everything you have done for us.

All the best!

From: Dorning Primary school

22^nd July 2009

Receipts

Receipt #1
 
This receipt is for the Chinese books(2431.20 rmb).

Receipt #2

 
This receipt is for Tibetan (1304 rmb), English (487.8 rmb) and Chinese books (1304.2 rmb).  The receipt total is 3096.00 rmb).

Receipt #3

 This receipt for the transportation fee of the books (400 rmb)

Original Proposal
Project Location
This project is located Dorning Primary school in Dorning Village, which is in the west part of Rebgong County. Dorning Village is about 20 km from Rebgong County which is located in Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Rebgong is about 180 km from Xining City, the capital of Qinghai Province.

School background
The school was built in 1992 and has six grades. Students come from four small areas: Nianglao, Aru, Caiza and Ning. Students from these areas share one school in Nianglao, since the other ares are too small to have their own school. There are 143 students, among them 70 boys and 73 girls. There are six male and five female teachers. Students study Tibetan, Chinese, Math and English. There is room for a library, but there are no books. The school does not collect any extra money from students to buy practice and library books, so the only books the students have access to are textbooks.

Village Background
Population
Dorning village is composed of four smaller villages: Nianglao, Aru, Caiza and Ning. There are 170 households with approximately 800 people in Dorning village and among them 330 are men, 300 are women, and 170 are children.

Education
In Dorning village there are 22 university students (13 boys and 9 girls),18 high school students (10 boys and 8 girls), 24 middle school students (10 boys and 14 girls), and 143 primary school students (70 boys and 73 girls). On average one child from each family is receiving education. Approximately 20% of the village adults are literate, which includes monks and nuns.

Cash income
In Dorning Village most of the villagers (besides old people and children) usually dig caterpillar fungus, a kind of medicinal herb that grows high in the mountains. This is the only way for villagers to earn income. People dig caterpillar fungus from the end of April to the middle of June. Each caterpillar fungus can sell for15-20 RMB. On average, each person can earn 3,000-4,000 RMB total from selling caterpillar fungus.
Dorning villagers use their yearly income to pay for school tuition and daily necessities. Families with a student in university pay around 6,000 RMB a year. The students from middle school and high school usually need 800 RMB for the yearly school tuition. Families spend about 1,500 RMB a year for food and clothes and about 1200 RMB a year for electricity and other necessities (oil, medicine, fuel, etc.) and another about 800rmb for students’ tuition fee.
In total, the average family can earn 3,800 RMB per year. They need to spend 3,500 RMB per year. Averagely each family has 300 RMB extra for each year. However families with university students need to borrow money from other relatives or villagers.

Agriculture
In Dorning village all the villagers are farmers. They grow barley, wheat and potatoes on their own land. Because of the high altitude, the fields cannot be irrigated. Villagers just depend on the rainfall. The families are not able to produce excess products to sell; they can only produce enough to survive on. Wealthier families in the village own 7 mu of farm land. Most families only have 2 or 3 mu of land. On average, 1 mu of land can produce 350 kg barley and 400 kg wheat or 700 kg potatoes per year.

Herding
Although all the villagers in Dorning village are farmers, on average each family has four animals to help with plowing and transporting crops. These animals are usually one cow, one donkey, one mule, and one goat.

Problems
No books in school library
Dorning Primary School is built in 1992 and has been running for sixteen years. There is a “library” with no books in the school. Four years ago the County Education Bureau mandated that all formal schools have a library. Dorning Primary school built a library to pass their evaluation, but was unable to stock the library with books. The school really wants to set up a real library with books for students to read; however, due to their financial condition, the school can not afford to purchase the books.
Lack of general knowledge
Generally, the students’ general knowledge about the outside world is very limited. This has a negative effect on students’ scores when they have competitions with other schools. In addition, the teachers usually do not teach knowledge beyond textbooks. These problems would be alleviated if the school had a good library where the students could borrow and read books they were interested in.
No access to child-centered books for free reading
Since students only have access to textbooks, there are no books students can use for free reading. This creates a learning environment where literacy is valued only for schooling and not for the joy of reading. Even if students wanted to read during their free time, they would not have anything to read.

Project goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 445 books for Dorning primary school including 165 Tibetan books, 217 Chinese books and 63 English books.
The overarching goal is to improve the students’ general knowledge about the outside world, and create higher possibilities to pass entrance exams for attending middle school and high school.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit 143 students and 11 teachers; 800 villagers will indirectly benefit from this project.

Benefits
1. If this project is approved, then the school library will not be empty any more and the library will be filled with different books.
2. If this project is funded, the students’ general knowledge about the outside world would improve. Students will have access to more learning materials, which will increase their chances of getting higher scores on their middle school and high school entrance exams.
3. If the project can provide different kinds of child-friendly books, the students will be more likely to do independent reading. They can read the books that they like and improve their reading skills.
4. If this project is implemented, the teachers can use different books and learning materials to teach their students. In this case, it will be easier for the teachers to teach.

Gender equality
Firstly, this project will benefit both boys and girls in the school; they will be able to borrow books from the library if this project is approved. Furthermore, the students’ general knowledge will be improved by reading books which are not taught in the regular their classes.
Secondly, the project manager is a woman who designed, and will implement and manage the entire project. In this case she can enrich her computer skills, communication skills with different people like the local headmaster. In addition, she can build her self-confidence by implementing this project. At the same time, the project manager, as a woman, sends an important message to the local people that women can also accomplish great things like doing projects in order to contribute to the community.

Government approval
In April 2008, I discussed this project with the village leader Shonan Lenchu, school leader Dorji and the teachers. They gave me full permission to go on with this project and encouraged me do my best, because it could help many children in the village.

Project activities
1. Contact the village leader on the phone and asked bout the most needed thing. (Done)
2. Ask the teachers what kinds of books are needed. (Done)
3. Go to the bookstore and check prices of books. (Done)
4. Collect information about the village and the school. (Done)
5. Get permission from local government. (Done)
6. Hold a meeting with teachers and students to choose librarian and determine library rules.
7. Write the proposal.
8. Receive funds.
9. Purchase books from Xining book stores and arrange transportation.
10. Distribute books to the school.
11. Hold meeting with villagers, teachers and students to assess progress of the project.
12. Take photographs
13. Send final report to donor.

Timeframe
This project will take around two weeks to complete after it gets funded.
1 day: Inform the school teachers that the project is funded.
4 days: Purchase the books from Xining book stores
2 days: Pack all the books and transport the books to the school.
1 day: Hold a meeting with the school leader and teachers, come up with some rules of protecting books from being torn or damaged easily.
3 days: Display the books in library.
2 days: Take photos and interview the students and teacher.

Detailed Budget

Sustainability
This book project will be sustainable. Firstly, if the books are transported to the school, there will be a librarian. The librarian will be a teacher chosen by the school; this chosen teacher will be responsible for managing the library. Students will have library cards if they want to borrow books. They will have to write their names on a form in order to borrow the books. In this way, students will have to be responsible for the books. Also if students lose or damage the books then they will be responsible for paying money for damaged books.
Past Experience
In 2004, the project manager Jiakmo Tsering completed a second hand clothes project in Rebgong County. In 2008, she completed another second hand clothes project for Quma Village, Rebgong County, Qinghai Province.

Map of the project location

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 18^th, 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 13^th, 2009.

8.        On July 14^th, 2009, a meeting was held with School Headmaster to decide a good time to go to Xining to purchase the books.

9.        On July 15^th, 2009 equipment (desks, chairs and bookshelf) for the library was prepared.

10.    On July 16^th, 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 19^th, 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 20^th, 2009, Teacher Senzhu transported all of the books to the Xining Bus Station.

14.    On August 5^th, 2009, the project manager transported the books to Xinzhai Village, Jiegu Township, Yushu County, Yushu Autonomous Prefecture,     Qinghai Province.

15.    On August 11^th, 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

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 13^th, 2009, and she bought the
books on July 19^th, 2009. However, she was not able to deliver the books to the Xinzhai School library until August 5^th, 2009, because on July 20^th, 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 5^th, 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 10^th 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

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

Purchase 15 computers, 1 copy machine, 1 digital camera, 1 campus radio and 1 pickup camera to Lake Primary School; and improve school’s condition and at the same time motivate students’ study interests and increase the school enrolment.

Asia Foundation and Shem’s private donors funded this project

Limao Cairang is from Xunhua County, Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, China. She graduated from Qinghai Normal University English Training Program in January 2008, and she is currently working as one of the program directors in Shem Women’s Group.

What? To provide 10 computers, 1 copy machine, 1 campus radio, and 1 pickup camera to Lake Primary School to improve school’s condition and at the same time motivate students’ study interests and increase the school enrolment.
Who? Lake Primary School in Lake Village, Rdo Sbis Township, Xunhua County, Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, China

Photos of project implementation

On April 21^st, the project manager Lumo Tsering went to the project location to had meeting with the school leaders again to emphasize the importance of project sustainability. 

The computers were transported to Lake School by lunch time from Xining and whole school teachers and students were waiting to load the computers. 

The teachers and students from Lake School help the skilled men to load the computers components.

Only the biggest students are allowed to help the skilled men to get the computer components to the computer room, because teachers were afraid that the young ones will accidently break them. Therefore the older students happily take the small ones to the computer room.

The skilled men install the computers in the computer room under teacher’s help.

When the computers arrived to the school, the school cleaned their computer room well and prepared the desk and chairs and 10 computers are put in the computer room.

After the computers are installed, the teachers asked the skilled men to test one computer to see if there are any problems. The computer in the picture is the one near the electrical outlet, so they text this one and it works very well.

The man in the picture is the school leader and after the project manager handed him the pickup camera, he opens the camera box to see how to use it.

After the computers were installed, the teachers were asking the skilled men to connect the copy machine with their computers and also teach them how to use it properly.

The teachers were helping the skilled men to tie the column loudspeaker of campus radio at the top of building. They decided to tie it to this building, so the students can hear very clearly.

These are the inside components of campus radio, the timing player, power amplifier, DVD and also there are two radio microphones.

The school asked the project manager Lumo Tsering to have a picture in the computer room before the computers and the two men in the picture are the lake school leader and the Township educational leader. The students hold the papers with 8 Chinese characters “Shem Women’s Group thank you very much” 

This picture is after the project is completed. All the students stand around the project manager lumo Tsering who stands in the middle. The students at the back hold the letters which say “Shem Women’s Grou thank you very much”

Project summary

Project title: Computer Project for Lake Primary School

Project goals: to provide 10 computers, 1 copy machine, 1 campus radio and 1 pickup camera to Lake Primary School. This is to improve school’s condition and at the same time motivate students’ study interests and increase the school enrolment.

Project Location: This project is located in Lake Primary School in Lake Village, Rdo Sbis Township, which is about 30 kilometers from Xunhua County Town in the southwest of Xunhua County.  Lake Village is about 180 kilometers away from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai province. Xunhua County is a Salar Autonomous County and is situated in Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, China.

Total beneficiaries: This computer project directly benefits approximately 140 students and teachers in Lake Primary School. Approximately 1323 villagers from the six villages where the students are from indirectly get benefit.

Implementation organization/individual: Lumo Tsering (Project manager), Project committee (Dengo{School leader}, Lego(chief director), Juoba Tsering(male teacher), Yangmo(female teacher), Lumo(female teacher) and Shem Women’s group.

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Source, Amount, and Date Received
Lumo Tsering received 37,200rmb from Shem Women’s Group on April 25^th 2009.

Details of project activities

1.        Discussed the problems of the school with the teachers, and decide what can be done to alleviate these problems.

2.        Visited the school to collect information about and for the project.

3.        Discussed with the teachers the best way to make the computer project sustainable.

4.        Asked the school leader to get official permission to carry out the project from our county leader.

5.        Took pictures of the school conditions.

6.        Talked to the students about how much they know about computers and why they want it.

7.        Figured out the price of materials in Xining.

8.        Chose Dengo(School leader), Lego(chief director), Juoba Tsering(male teacher), Yangmo(female teacher) and , Lumo(female teacher) to be          members of the project committee and be responsible for the materials.

9.        Wrote project proposal.

10.    Fund is received.

11.    Went the Xining electronic market to check the price of the materials again

12.    Collected the local contribution from the school.

13.    Held a meeting with the school teacher to emphasize the importance of being responsible.

14.    Purchased computer and other materials from Xining and transport them to the school.

15.    Installed the computer in the computer room and ask the skilled man to explain the usage of the other materials.

16.    Transported the campus radio to the school.

17.    Installed the campus radio in the school yard

18.    Took picture of the project

19.    Interviewed the teachers and students to gauge the success of the project.

20.    wrote final report

Project Finances

The Asia Foundation contributed 14,534 Rmb and the Shem’s private donor contributed 21,766 Rmb for the project. In original proposal the total cash budget is 42,400 rmb. The project manger Lumo tsering received 37,200 rmb from Shem Women’s Group and received 5000 rmb from local people, so in total she received 42,200 rmb for this project.

*Note 1: The project manager brought the computers from a man who she usually works with, so Lumo Tsering(project manager) got cheaper price for the 10 computers.

*Note 2: The project manager arranged with the computer man about the transportation fee and finally both of them agreed to include the two times transportation fee in computer price, so 700 transportation fees was saved.

*Note 3: In Original budget, the donor contribution is 37200 and the local school cash contribution is 5200rmb, but the project manager only get 5000rmb from the school. In local 5000 rmb, only 4406rmb was spent for this project, so there are 594rmb left from school contribution. And in donor contribution, 35800 rmb was spent and there are 1400 rmb left. So in total there are 1994 rmb left from this project.

Delays, Difficulties, and lessons learned

Delays
The starting date for the project was delayed for several months, because firstly the school was having winter holiday when the project was funded, and it is hard to ask the teachers to come to the school when the school is off, so the project manager couldn’t implement the project until after March. Secondly, the project manager Lumo tsering needed to go to Sweden on March 14^th to attend a training which took one and half month and because she was very busy preparing for the training, she couldn’t implement the project right after the school started and also not until she came back from Sweden. Thirdly, because the skilled men didn’t know the size of school yard, so they couldn’t transport the campus radio when they transport the computers to school. So the complete date of project was delayed for one week.

Difficulties
Under the support from school and project committee, the project manger Lumo Tsering didn’t meet any serious problems. However, the project manager encountered several small problems. Firstly, because Project manger didn’t know much about the price of computers and other equipment, she went to the electronic market for several times and asked almost all the stores to see the price of the computers and other equipment. Secondly, because the project manager is now working, so she always needed to ask for day off in order to go the project location to oversee the project implementation. So it somehow affects her work and it was also hard for her to travel to the project location in the morning and come back to Xining in the evening. Also since the skilled men talk very quickly when they explain the usages, Lumo tsering need to explain to the teachers again and again and needed to be kind of translator, so she needed to make sure that she was there every time when the skilled men is explaining something.

Lesson learnt
During the implementing of the computer project, one thing which the project manger learnt was that it is very important to meet the project target group personally, in that way it will be very clear about what they need and how one can help. Also by meeting with the target group, one can avoid misunderstanding, because the project manager and target group can always explain to each other and make sure they understand each other.

The project manger also learnt that it is very important to clear all things before the project. Even though sometimes we need to say something which is not very nice to hear about, it is better to clear it out before the project. For example, the project manager told the school teachers and if any of the computers were lost, then they need to replace it by themselves and also asked them to write guarantee latter. In that way if some problem occurred after the project, then it is very clear for both the teachers and project manager who need to be responsible for the project afterward.

Also if there are any changes about project, then the project manager should communicate with the target group why there are changes and why we need to change the original plan. In that way, both groups will be very clear about the project after and there won’t be any problems or misunderstanding.

Addition to that, it is always good to explain to the target group why are we collecting local contribution from the them, in that way, they will know that it is not only donor’s project, it is also their project to which they have contributed, so in the future they will take the project as their own not the donors, and if there is any problems, then they will manage to solve it.

Interviews  

Teacher Gongbo Tsering and teacher Lumo
They are teachers in Lake School now and both of them have being in the school for almost 9 years, They said, “we really like the school and have trying our best to teach the students, and the students in the school also try very hard to study. So last year, when the Township educational bureau compares the study result of all the primary school, our school was the second one which almost catches up with the best primary school at the Township. All the teachers were very happy with the result. However, because our school lacks the equipments that other schools have, so we couldn’t help the students as much as we want. Students need to go to the Township middle school after their graduation and at that time, they won’t catch up with students from the Township schools, because we had no computers and they didn’t get any of classes related to computer. But now the students in this school are luckily enough that the school has those new computers. So we would try our best to teach the students and would make sure they learn what needed to be learnt” Teacher Gongbo Tsering didn’t talk much, but he smiled when teacher lumo was talking.

Teacher Lego
He is the chief director if the school and also is one of the members of project committee. He talked to the project manager a lot about the problems that they had before, and the most interest one he said is that “we have a printer and every time before the exam, the teachers need to make exam paper and because the printer is so slow, we need to be with the printer whole day to make sure we got the exam paper correctly. If we just leave for a second, then the printer machine would stop. Also sometimes, when the machine stops we need to hit the top part, then it would work properly for a while. However, last time when teacher lumo was using the machine, it didn’t print the papers and no matter now hard she hit the machine, the paper didn’t come out. So she was very angry and said that machine discriminate the female teachers. But now with the new machine, we can finish print the exam paper in few second and it really saved lots of our times. We are very happy that we don’t need to hit the machine any more and don’t need to be with it for whole day”

The youngest students in the school
They are the youngest students in the school and were having the class outside when the project manager arrived to the school. The project manager asked them about whether they know what is computer and how much do they know about using computer. They said they all know what is computer which surprised the project manager, then when the project manager asked them how do they know what is computer, then they said their teacher showed the only one computer in the office to them just few days ago and said they will have more computers after few days. They also said they don’t know any thing about using a computer, and confidently said that they will know how to use it if the teachers teach them how to use it. Then the project manger told them that they should study hard and learn more about computer, because computer can do lots of things.

Male students in the school yard
The project manager also talked to those students in the picture and they said they need to come to school very early in the morning, because their homes are very far away from the school. Then when project manager talked to them about how much do they know about computers, they become very excited and some of them said, “it is the machine that can show movies”, and others said, “my brother go there to chat with his friends.” Then the project manager told them that it can do lots of things, include chat with your friends and also watch the movies, but there are lots of other things the computer do and asked them whether they want to learn. They answered very loudly, “Yes, we would like to learn” and the project manager guess it is the way they answer the questions during the class.

Letters from the school

(1)Letter of appreciation

The translation of thanks Letter

Dear Shem Women’s Group and the Asia Foundation,

Greetings!

Firstly, on behalf of all the teachers and students we would like to say thank you, for your generous donation to our school.

Since the establishment of our school, the school gets the concerns from higher levels officials and the local community. Under their support, our school made progress some with educational development. However, since the school is located in the remote valley where the transportation is very inconvenient and information is lacked, it created a great obstacle for school’s development. Therefore, your donation for this time is very huge, the things are very precious and all the equipments are much needed for the school. And it is definitely a great break through of our school with educational teaching equipment. It provides a great opportunity for the teachers to change the old traditional ways of teaching and could motivate the students to learn in new way. So it promoted the technology information, educational methods of our school.

In this very important moment, your donation is a great support and encouragement to our school. So once again all the teachers and students would like to say thank you and hope all have healthy and successful year!

Lake School

April 28^th 2009

(2) Guarantee letter for the project

The translation of school’s Guarantee Letter

Guarantee letter

With the donation from Shem Women’s group, our school has brought computers and other teaching equipments which totally cost about forty thousand rmb, and for the long term sustainability of the project, our school set up a project committee, and the members are Dengo{School leader}, Lego(chief director), Juoba Tsering(male teacher), Yangmo(female teacher) and , Lumo(female teacher), and we guarantee to Shem Women’s Group the followings:

1.        User the equipment properly. Try our best to use the computers to the class to create great atmosphere for both teachers and students.

2.        We would rather use the computers until is break, not leave the computer to broke. All the teachers will help the students to use the computers well.

3.        We also we take well care of the computers and other equipment if we lost any of them, we will pay it back. If the equipments break, them we will manage to fix it immediately. If we lost any of equipments, then we will pay Shem Women’s Group back.

Warrantor: Dengo, Lego, Juoba Tsering, Yangmo, and Lumo

Assuring institute: Lake School

April 27^th 2009

The list of Receipts

Receipt # 1

Receipt #2

Receipt #3

Receipt 4

Receipt 5

Note: There are together 11 pieces of taxi fee, which the project manager used to go to the electronically market to check the price for several times and also transport the things to project manager’s home in order to make it convenient to transport the things to the school. Also some of the taxi receipts are the ones took from the bus station to the project manager’s office. Since there are lots of receipts there, the project manager only post one to represent them all.

Original Proposal

Project location
This project is located in Lake Primary School in Lake Village, Rdo Sbis Township, which is about 30 kilometers from Xunhua County Town in the southwest of Xunhua County. Lake Village is about 180 kilometers away from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai province. Xunhua County is a Salar Autonomous County and is situated in Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, China.

Population
Lake Village is mainly an agricultural area with 36 households. The total population is estimated as 156 villagers: 49 women, 44 men and 63 children (25 girls and 38 boys).
The population of Lake Primary School is 140. This includes 130 students (68 girls and 62 boys), 9 teachers (3 female teachers and 6 male teachers), and 1 male cook. Among the students the smallest is about 5 years old and the oldest is 12 years old.

Education
The students in Lake Primary School come from six different villages and these villages are: Deiman Village (214 villagers), Xunwa Village (268 villagers), Omando Village (258 villagers), Lake Village (156 villagers), Xia Lamelungwa Village (202 villagers) and Shang Lamelungwa Village (225 villagers). In all of these villages around 95% of the villagers are illiterate (not including the students). None of the older villagers attended school when they were young, because of heavy work load that they needed to do for living, and also because they could not afford the required school tuition.
Lake Primary School is one of the primary schools in Rdo Sbis Township and it was established in 1981. Like all other primary schools, there are only five grades in the school, from grade one to grade five, and after the students finish reading the fifth grades they need to go to the Rdo Sbis Middle school to continue their education. So far about 810 students, 324 girls and 486 boys, had graduated from this school.
In the school the students have courses like Tibetan, Chinese, Math, Nature Studies and Sociology. Among all these courses Tibetan, Chinese and Math are taken as major classes.

Cash Income
All these six villages, where Lake Primary School students come from, are agricultural villages. All these six villages are in Rdo Sbis Township and all these villages are very near to each other . The distance between the villages is about 1 or 2 kilometers. So the family conditions between these villages are pretty much the same. There are few families who have more than 10 mu (1 mu = 0.0666 hectares) of land. They can sell their excess barley and earn about 1,500 RMB each year. Most families only have 8 mu of land which is enough for them and their animals to live off; it is certainly not enough for them to make extra income. So these rich land families are able to sell their extra crops to earn money.

Secondly, even though Rdo Sbis Township is not a nomadic place, people still have some livestock, and thus they can earn some cash from the animal products. From the cow’s milk, villagers produce butter and cheese to generate extra income. Because people do not eat butter or cheese very often, most of it can be sold. A family can earn about 500-600 RMB per year by selling butter and cheese. Most households can make about 25 to 30 jin (12-15 kg) of butter and 30 jin (15 kg) of cheese each year.

The third way of generating cash income is as migrant laborers. Adults who are able to work usually go out to dig caterpillar fungus (a kind of medical herb which grows in high altitudes). Each caterpillar fungus can be sold for around 15 to 20 RMB. People usually go to dig the fungus at the beginning of May and come back home in the middle of June. During good seasons, each person can earn about 2000-3000 RMB. But good seasons have been happening less and less frequently. About 600 RMB earned in this way is spent on students who attend middle school and high school. Also, this money can cover family costs such as New Year festivities. In one year, people spend about 1000 RMB on food and 600 RMB on the clothes. In one month a household will spend another 200 RMB on electricity and other essentials. In the summer villagers need to buy fertilizer, which costs about 700-800 RMB.
In total, families in these six villages can make 3100 RMB in cash income per year, and they have to spend 3150 per year. This leaves the families no money left over each year. Sometimes if a family has students who are going to university then they need to borrow money from others to afford their tuition.

Agriculture
These six villages mostly grow barley, wheat and potatoes. Other vegetables like green pepper and tomatoes can be grown in Rdo Sbis Township because of the climate. So these three crops become the most common food of the villagers. With the land they have, one mu (1mu=0.0666 hectares) of agricultural land can produce around 350 – 400 kilograms of crops. Each household approximately has around 8 mu of land to grow crops, and each house can produce about 3,000 kilograms of crops.

Herding
All these six villages are not nomads and thus the villagers do not have much livestock. On average each household has five animals – one donkey, one cow, one pig and two goats. With the exception of the pig, these animals are used for milking and working, not for eating. As stated previously, villagers can sell butter and cheese and each family can earn about 500-600 RMB per year, depending on how much butter and cheese a family can save. This money is used to buy everyday essentials, such as medicine and salt.

Project Goals
The immediate goal of this project is to provide 15 computers, 1 copy machine, 1 digital camera, 1 campus radio and 1 pickup camera to Lake Primary School. The overarching goal of this project is to improve school’s condition and at the same time motivate students’ study interests and increase the school enrolment.

Problems
1. Increase teachers’ workload
In Lake Primary School there is only one computer which is donated by Xunhua County Education Bureau and thus all the teachers take turns to use this computer when they really need it. Otherwise they prepare teaching materials by hand. Every year during the exam time which happens in the middle of the semester and at the end of the semester, the teachers need to make exam sheet for the students and this makes their work especially hard. In the past years they had a mimeograph that they could use to copy more sheets after they had original handwriting one and they don’t need to copy more exam sheets by hand. However, after their mimeograph broke they couldn’t find a place to fix it. So the teachers in Lake Primary School needed to take turns making their exam sheets three weeks before the exam time. However, since the old computer is used by all the teachers all the time, the computer always breaks and often needs repairs. So in this case the teachers need to handwrite their exam sheets and every teacher mostly needs to copy around 30 other sheets. This makes teachers’ workloads even harder.

2. Students can’t catch up with other school students when they are in middle school
Because there are no computers at the Lake Primary School, most students do not even know what a computer is and what they can do with it. So after the students graduate and go to the Township Middle school, where they have computers and have computer classes, they cannot catch up with the other students from other schools. Most of the other Township Middle School students have learnt basic computer skills from their own primary schools. So when the Lake Primary School students begin having computer class they do not know what the teacher is talking about and can hardly learn any new skills. It is hard for the students to get to the new environment and can’t catch up with other students. So, most of them lose interest in learning computers which is really a necessary skill in this society.

3. Students’ interests toward study is decreasing
Teachers from Lake Primary School said that students are very interested in the new things, such as computers, and are eager to learn it. Whenever they saw the only computer in the office, they would peep through the window. However, because of the school condition, the school cannot provide them with a computer and make their studies more interesting.

4. School life is insipid
According to the teachers, they said now there aren’t many national festivals as there were in the past. Before, all the schools got together in the Township school and celebrated Children’s days and other festivals as well. So at the time students needed to perform which they really liked and enjoyed. However, these days many festivals are not celebrated as a big group and students do not have a chance to perform even if they want to. Additionally, the school doesn’t have a campus radio to play music during the lunch time and other important times like Children’s day (Lake School is trying to make school life little bit interesting by celebrate festivals in their school) and this makes school life even more dull.

5. Students can’t get other study materials
Right now in Lake Primary School textbooks are the only materials the students have and they have no access to other materials that can help them improve what they learnt. In the past years, the school planned to buy some study materials, but they were very expensive and the school could not afford it without collecting money from the students. The students are mostly from impoverished families and to collect money from them is hard, so the teachers just try their best to teach from the textbook. However, with the computer, they could solve the problems by use the computer to make more of these kinds of books, or they can use the computer to access the internet to find study materials]

6. Hard to get help from the education bureau
Every year, at the end of the semester all the schools need to submit an annual report to the county education bureau to show what they have done in past year. Many schools have taken pictures of the activities they conducted during the previous year. However, because Lake Primary School does not have a camera to take pictures of what they have done, it is hard to convince the education bureau that they have accomplished all those things. Also according to what the teachers say, if the school does not have a computer, then the school is considered as a none-advanced school. Because of this, when the education bureau makes decisions to help certain schools Lake Primary School does not have a good chance.

7. Hard to import other teaching methodologies to the school
There are many chances for the teachers in Lake Primary School to go to other schools in both the township and the county to supervise other classes and see the good and special teaching methodologies they are using now. The teachers do not have access to cameras or computers to record their findings. This makes it difficult to communicate and share their findings.

8. The number of students is decreasing
Two years ago there were about 200 students in Lake Primary School, and all these students were from the neighboring seven villages. But since the classes were not that interesting and the school did not have computers like other schools do, most of the students went to the township school which is far from them. Their families want their children to study in the better school. However, some families do not even send their children to school at all, because children themselves are not interesting in the school classes any more, so now there are only 130 students in Lake Primary School.

Benefits
If we have computers and other requested materials in the school, then all the problems stated above will be solved:

1) Teachers’ workload will decrease: if the school has computers, then the teachers will not need to share one computer to prepare teaching materials. Also when they need to make an exam sheet they will not need to prepare three weeks before. They can make the exam sheet in one day, and this will save lots of time.

2) Students from Lake Primary School will have no difficulties catching up with other students with using Computers: If the school has computers for the students to use, then the students will learn the basic skills of computer and will have difficulties of learn more new skills when they go to the Township Middle school.

3) Students will get interested in studying: if the school could provide a computer class to the students, it will make their studying more interesting and students will enjoy learning new technology.

4) If the school has campus radio, then they could play students’ favorite songs during lunch time since all the students in Lake Primary School love to sing. Also even though they are not celebrating the festivals as a large group, Lake Primary School could celebrate in their own school. With the campus radio, the festival will be interesting. This might attract parents’ attention to the quality of school life and could motivate them to send their children to school.

5) Students’ studies will be improved: if the school has computers then they can just make one material and type it in the computer then use the copy machine to make copies and distribute them to the students. In that way people will only need to spend a little money to get the necessary materials for the students to improve their studies.

6) The school will have possibilities of getting help from the education bureau. The school could have one camera that they could use while they are conducting interesting activities. Then the school could use the pictures on their annual report as an advertisement to show to the education bureau what they have done. If they have computers for their students to learn skills, then their school will become a school with hope which will make a high possibility for Lake Primary School to get chance to get help from the education bureau. The teachers could import some useful teaching methodologies to the school: The teachers said that if they could have a camera to record the whole process of the class, then that will help them change their teaching ways. Moreover, they can make a CD of these things and let students learn more about other schools and other students. This will make their classes more interesting and encourage students to study hard while at the same time the teachers would get more experience from other schools.

7) More students will come to the school: If the school could have computers as other schools do, then the school will be considered as good school and the students could learn computers as other students do. The neighboring villages will not need to send their children to the far away school. Also the families who keep their children at home will have more incentive to send their children to school.

Beneficiaries
This computer project will directly benefit approximately 140 students and teachers in Lake Primary School. Approximately 1323 villagers from the six villages will indirectly benefit.

Gender equality
The project will be implemented and managed by me and the teachers in Lake Primary School. It will benefit all the students and teachers in the school, but female students will especially benefit by being able to use the school computer. Now, it is culturally inappropriate for female students to go to internet bars to use the computer, so many boys have more experience with computers than girls. Having access to school computers will encourage more girls to use the computer. Also I, the project manager, as a young woman will encourage the female students to rethink their idea that boys are always smarter than girls. The female students will see me as a role model, which will encourage them to be more brave and confident.

Governmental Approval
The local government always supports schools as much as they can, but since there are lots of schools that need support and the government’s ability is limited, neither the Lake Primary School nor the government can carry out a project like this because of the money. If we can secure funding for this project, the government will support it wholeheartedly because to improve the education condition of the school is very important thing for the whole area. I, the project manager, talked to the Township government Leader, Zhoujia on 1^st June, they gave me permission to do this project.

The Steps of Project

1. Discuss the problems of the school with the teachers, and decide what can be done to alleviate these problems. (Done)

2. Talk with teachers about the community’s most essential needs and how the school problem can be solved. (Done)

3. Visit the school to collect information about and for the project. (Done)

4. .Discuss with the teachers the best way to make the computer project sustainable. (Done)

5. Ask the school leader to get official permission to carry out the project from our county leader. (Done)

6. Take pictures of the school conditions. (Done)

7. Talk to the students about how much they know about computers and why they want it. (Done)

8. Figure out the price of materials in Xining. (Done)

9. Contact the school leader to choose Ake Jiaoba (male), Yangmo (female) and Legu (male) to be members of the project committee and be responsible for the materials. (Done)

10. Write project proposal. (Done)

11. Funds are received.

12. Hold a meeting with the school teacher to emphasize the importance of being responsible.

13. Purchase computer and other materials from Xining and transport them to the school.

14. Load the computers in the computer room and take pictures.

15. Interview the teachers and students to gauge the success of the project.

16. Send final report to donor.

Time frame
This project will take 7 days to complete.
1 day: Have a meeting with Lake School teachers and discuss the start date of the project.
1 day: Sign contract with Mr. Yu (the person who is managing computer businesses in company).

2 days: Purchase other materials in Xining in Shengli Lu Electronics market.

1 day: Transport the materials from Xining to Lake Primary School.

1 day: Install computers.

1 day: Interview the teachers and students in the School and take pictures.

In total, the project will take 7 days to complete, though there might be potential weather delays or other unforeseen delays.

Detailed Budget

Project management expenses: Money spent on tickets for going to the school to collect information needed for the Project phone calls to the school for collecting additional information, and transportation fees needed for implementing the project after funds are received.

Training fee:
the school is planning to send one teacher to Xunhua County for computer training for each month in summer vacation and winter vacation.

Sustainability
Because there will be three teachers implementing the project, it will remain sustainable and also we have a care taking committee after the project is implemented. All the teachers and students will have a vested interest in the long-term success of the project and will take good care of the computers because they will get great benefits from this computer project.
The school also planned to buy a security door for the computer room. All teachers are also responsible for looking after the security of the school and are willing to be extra vigilant in guarding the computer room even during the vacations. So computers will be very safe in the school. Also the project manager has been working together with the computer company in past two years and the project manger is confident the quality of their products is very high. The suppliers have guaranteed a return policy up to three years and can repair the computer with any hardware and software problems. They guarantee maintenance forever Additionally, in Xunhua County there is a company which is about one hour by bus from Lake Primary School to Xunhua County, and this company will fix the computer if it has any technical problems. If it is necessary then the school can hire a technician from this company to go to the school and fix the computer.

Additional Information
The project manager LumoTsering is currently working in Shem Women’s Group as one of the program directors. She has successfully managed and completed a running water project in 2007 with the support of Shem Women’s Group and The Shambala Connection.
From April 2003 to 2006, LumoTsering completed two second-hand clothes project that benefited about 200 people in Huadi Village, Rso Sbis Township, Xunhua County, Qinghai Province in China.

About the project location

This is the gate of Lake Primary School

This is one of the five classrooms in Lake Primary School

These are some of the students in the school and the project manger is the one standing at the back in the middle.

The project manager is discussing the problems with the teachers and collects the information for the project.

The project manager is interviewing some of the students about how much do they know about computer and why they want computer.

This is the computer which is donated by education bureau six years ago and it the only computer the school have in teacher’s office and the teachers said that this computer always have problem because it is over used for all school businesses.

She is the only one who knows how to use computer and do the basic things like typing. She learnt the skills from her father, because her father is the leader of the school and he has his own computer at home.

This is the computer room the school prepared for five years and because of financial problems school don’t even have one computer for student to learn computer skills.

The day the project manger visited the school was National Children’s Day. The school celebrated by rewarding the students who studied very hard and scored well on their exams.

Since this is Children’s day, students are wearing their best Tibetan robes and ornaments. They are preparing a performance for their school.

The teachers are distributing candy, seeds and peanuts to the children for their Children’s Day.

The students are singing songs with their loudest voices while they are eating the snacks provided by the school.

Map of the project location

This project is to buy 297 English Reading Books and 632 Chinese Reading Books for 19 teachers and 210 students in Yueya Wan Primary School in order to enrich the students’ general knowledge about the outside world and assist their study in the future..

Asia Foundation funded this project

Tsedan Drolma is from Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province, China. She is graduated from associated degree in English at the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program in 2009.

What? To buy 297outside English Reading Books and 632 outside Chinese Reading Books for 210 students in Yueya Wan Primary School to enrich the students’ general knowledge about the outside world and assist their study in the future.

Who? The students from Yueya Wan School in Yueya Wan Village, Sungshan Township, in the Southern part of Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province.

Photos of Project Implementation

The School leader and the project manger shake hands and he said, “Thank you very much for the Asia Foundation’s support.” They held a ceremony for contributing books to them.

Teachers who are very nice to help us to put books on the shelf

Students choose their own favorite book to read, and we can see happiness from their faces.

Project Summary

Project title: Book Project for Yueya Wan School

Project goals: The immediate goal of the project is to buy 297outside English Reading Books and 632 outside Chinese Reading Books for 19 teachers and 210 students in Yueya Wan Primary School. The overarching goal of the project is to enrich the students’ general knowledge about the outside world and assist their study in the future.

Project Location: This project is located in Yueya Wan Village, Sungshan Township, in the Southern part of Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province. Yueya Wan Village is 2 Kilometers from Tianzhu County which is 145 Kilometers from Lanzhou City, the capital city of Gansu Province. Lanzhou City is about 230 Kilometers from Xining City, the capital of Qinghai Province.

Total beneficiaries:This book project directly benefited 19 teachers and 210 students. Around 2,000 local people indirectly get benefit from this project because they don’t need to buy books for their children in Yueya Wan School.

Implementation organization/individual: Tsedan Drolma（Samantha），Wangtian Dong(the school leader)and Shem Women’s group

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Source, Amount, and Date Received
The Asia Foundation gave 14,464rmb on the 25^th of February.

Activities realized in the framework of the project

Ø         In March, 2007 Tsedan Drolma planed and designed a book project for Jiji Tan primary school.

Ø        In April, discussed with teachers in Jiji Tan primary school of Jiji Tan Vilage.

Ø        End of April wrote proposal.

Ø        On the 15^th of June completed proposal but the school suddenly stopped teaching, then Tsedan Drolma started contacting with other school.

Ø        On the 20^th of June wrote project for Yueya Wan primary school.

Ø       On the 30^th of July completed project.

Ø        In January or February of 2009, the project was funded by the Asia Foundation.

Ø        On the 25^th of February Tsedan Drolma received money from the Asia Foundation.

Ø        On the 23rd of April Tsedan Drolma went to Xining and purchase books. But prices of some books were higher than former price, and some books were not there. So Tsedan Drolma went to Lanzhou. Then she transported books from Lanzhou to Huazang Si.

Ø        On the 24^th of April transported books to Yueya Wan primary school, and the school held a ceremony of giving books. And also took pictures.

Ø        On the Children’s day, there were many local people came to Yueya Wan school have attended the performance.

Ø        On the 19^th of June, I started writing my report.

Project Finances

Delays, Difficulties, and lessons learned

Difficulties
23rd of April, I went to Xining and purchased books. My bank account was registered in Huazangsi so the bank deducted 200rmb as servicing fee from the project money when I took the funding of the project from the bank in Xining. It was my problem that I should take the money from Huazang Si but I also did not know it till deducted the money already. When we arrived Xining, but the driver wasn’t familiar about the road of Xining, and the driver just drove us for long time in order to search the destination while at that time I felt very dizzy. Finally we found a big bookstore in Xining, and we went into that bookstore and looked for these books on the list but some of them were not there, and also the prices of some books are increased than former price. Then we decided to go to Lanzhou city and purchased the books that we could not get in Xining. We arrived in Lanzhou at night about 10:00pm. On the second day we found a bookstore which is very good and there are many good books. We just spent six hours to find the books that are in the list. But some books were still not there and then we chose other books instead of them.

Lessons learned
I learned that through this book project the students are very happy for these books and they really need those books. The teachers are also very happy and one teacher asked me to write repairing cistern project. I learn that many rural areas need these kind projects. After I have done the project it gave more confidence to do more projects to help many people as they need our helps.

Letter of appreciation

Translation Letter

Dear the Asia Foundation members:
“Knowledge can figure character of a person.” Studying can change yourself and fate. You are very nice to help us, and contributing the books to our school it means that the Asia Foundation cares and encourages us to improve our teaching skills and it means you also take care of our students who are studying in rural areas. Your help will become huge strength of energy that can inspire our teachers and students’ studying ardor, enthusiasm, creativity, and continue to complete our goals. At the same time, it also can be a wealth of energy, and make every student grow up and also can gain knowledge to build their own hometown; return into society what they learn.

We made list of 926 books and put all the books on the book shelves, we are sure that these books are very helpful for the students who are from rural areas. We know that one book, one love, one wish, and grow up with monotone, and we all appreciate your kindness.

Students of thanks can not finish, but let us build bridge of great friendship and construct hall of knowledge. We want to say “thank you very much for your kind help”.

Wish your enterprise success!

Sincerely

Yueya Wan primary school

Receipts

#1

The total cost of transportation fee was 1,600rmb.

#2

The total cost of books was about 12,714.2rmb

 The receipt is about Yueya Wan school received 926 books.

#3

The receipt is about Management expenses and it was 150rmb.

Original Proposal

Project Location
This project is located in Yueya Wan Village, Sungshan Township, in the southern part of Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Gansu Province. Yueya Wan Village is 2 kilometers from Tianzhu County which is 145 kilometers from Lanzhou City, the capital city of Gansu Province. Lanzhou City is about 230 Kilometers from Xining City, the capital of Qinghai Province.

Background of Yueya Wan Primary School in Yueya Wan Village
In Yueya Wan is a multi-ethnic village, with Tibetans, Chinese, Hui, and Mongols. The local people mostly depend on farming and herding for their livelihood. Some people also do construction work or plant vegetables and grapes in a green house. Many Tibetan people cannot speak Tibetan, their mother language. Most people, except for a few older people, speak Chinese. In the families, all the school-aged children only speak Chinese, and the students do not study Tibetan since the school does not teach Tibetan.

There is a primary school in Yueya Wan village which is located below the southern mountain of Sunshan Township. There are 19 teachers and 210 students in the school. There are 6 school buildings which are Tile-roofed houses; they are old and made of bricks. 19 students live in the school. The rest of the students do not live in the school since their families are not very far away from the school. There are two dormitory rooms for the students: one has 12 beds for 12 boys and the other has 7 beds for 7 girls. There are 19 teachers who live in the school and 2 teachers share one dormitory. From 2004, all students started to study English from grade three.

Population
There are about 2,340 people of 340 households in Yueya Wan village. Among these people there are 713 men, 696 women, and 931 children (478 boys and 453girls).

Education
In Yueya Wan Village, 45 percent of the people are literate. In the village there are 10 college students (6 boys and 4 girls); 201 high school students (102 boys and 99 girls); 520 middle school students (273 boys and 247 girls), and 210 primary school students (103 boys and 98 girls) attending Yueya Wan Primary school. Some children are going to the county school, because their parents think that if students study in the county school, then they will get better education. Also, the quality of teaching in the county is better than in the village school. In the county school there are many book shops, where the students can purchase or read books. Also there are many educational activities offered in the county school.

Cash Income
In this village all the people are farmers, and they have three ways to earn money. Each family has 8 mu of farming land. Beans are the main cash-generating crop. Sometimes families can harvest 250-300 jin (125-1500 kg) of beans. They can earn around 2,000 rmb per year from selling beans.

The villagers who own sheep are able to sell fleece during the summer. 1 jin of fleece is about 10 rmb; one sheep’s fleece weighs 5.5 jin, so families can earn 55 rmb for every sheep. A family that has 27 sheep can earn around 1,500 rmb per year. Also some families might occasionally sell sheep.

Also a few of the villagers go outside the village to do construction work; some of them can earn 25 rmb per day. Usually they can earn 800 rmb for a construction project. A few households plant vegetables and grapes in green houses to earn some cash. If they successfully have the good harvest they can earn about 2,000 rmb per year. Sometime they just earn nothing from this business.

Now every thing has become expensive and the villagers will spend more money than before. To rent a machine to plow the fields costs 500 rmb. Fertilizer costs 850 rmb. The families who own sheep need to buy feedstuff which cost 1,000-2,000 rmb. Families spend around 1,600 rmb to celebrate the New Year. Buying clothes costs 750 rmb. Each family will spend 150 rmb on electricity, and around 100 rmb on phone calls per month. Also water fee cpsts around 30 rmb per person, so a families with 6 people will spend 180 rmb per year. Families who don’t have sheep need to buy meat such as mutton, beef, and pork.

In total, each family earns an average of 6,300 rmb per year, and they spend around 6,130 rmb. 170 rmb is left. If families have college students and high or middle school students, then they will spend money on students’ tuitions, then they borrow money from the relatives or ask for loans from the bank.

Agriculture
Generally in Yueya Wan Village, each family has 8 mu of framing land. People grow wheat, beans, rapeseed, and potatoes. Each mu of land can produce 100 kg of wheat per year. They don’t have extra wheat, rapeseed and potatoes to sell due to the following reasons: limited farmland, lack of rains and not enough fertilizer for the lands. Therefore it is just enough to support their families. However, most families can sell some extra beans to supplement their income.

Herding
All the villagers are farmers but they have sheep. In recent years the grassland has been divided, and around 13 families have around 200-300 sheep, and only one family has yaks. The quality of the grassland has declined recently and some families feed their sheep in a big room for whole year. Also in summer, many families move to other places and herd sheep.

Project goals
The immediate goal of the project is to buy 297 English Reading Books and 632 Chinese Reading Books for 19 teachers and 210 students in Yueya Wan Primary School. The overarching goal of the project is to enrich the students‘ general knowledge about the outside world and assist their study in the future.

Problems

1. Limited access to the books
In Yueya Wan School, the students do not have books to read, except the books from school. There are no English short stories and few Chinese compositions. Thus they have limited information and knowledge. There are also no book shops in the village and the students have no access to newspapers, magazines and other materials.

2. Low motivation to study
The students are always doing the same thing, reading textbooks, so they get bored. Even though students finish homework which teachers give them, they don’t enjoy studying. Gradually they don’t think that studying in the school is something interesting.

3. Poor reading and writing skills
The school is lacking the materials which can help students to improve their study and the students do not have access to interesting books other than textbooks. This negatively affects students’ reading and writing skills.

4. Waste time
Because there is no library to borrow books and other new materials for them to read, the students just spend their free time playing games.

5. Low scores
There are no practical materials for the students who are in grade six. They have no materials which can help them access other kinds of knowledge which will appear on the exam. So when the students take the examination for entering the middle school most of them get low scores.

6. No English materials
In Yueya Wan School, the students started to study English from 2004. There is no English reading material, besides the textbooks, for students to enjoy.

Benefits
Have more books to read: If students have access to the other books, then they can go to the library and read the books they are interested in. For instance, Chinese composition, and English short stories. So they will get more information and knowledge from the books.

Increased motivation to study: If students can get the books they think are interesting, they will enjoy reading and by the way enjoy studying.

Improved reading and writing skills: Through reading, students reading and writing skills will be improved. Access to more materials makes teachers’ tasks easier and also makes students become more confident.

Cherish time: If they have leisure time, students can go and read books, not waste their time playing. For instance, they could prepare for the class by reading related books.

Higher scores: If students of grade six could have materials which will help them on their exam, then they can prepare the exam by studying the materials. Then their examination scores for entering the middle school is will be improved. This will in turn improve the school’s reputation.

Access to English materials: If Students read more English materials they will have more opportunities to improve their English.

Beneficiaries
This book project directly benefits 19 teachers and 210 students. Around 2,000 local people indirectly benefit from this project because they do not need to buy books for their children in Yueya Wan School.

Government support
In 2008, January 16^th, the project manager talked to Meng Shoutao, the secretary of Sunshan Township, about her idea of implementing a project. He said he was very happy that the project manager was planning to do this book project and encouraged the project manager to try his best to complete this project.

Gender Equality
Books will benefit boys and girls equally. Also the villagers will believe that young women also acheive. The girls in the school will regard the project manager as their role model, and they will be encouraged to be brave and confident. Also teachers will change their attitudes to girls, because they think that boys are clever and they can do important things.

Project activities
1. Contact the school teachers and ask what are the problems of the school and how can we solve the problems. (done)

2. Discuss with the teachers and students what kinds of books they need. (done)

3. Go to bookshop and find out the price of books. (done)

4. Find out the transportation fee. (done)

5. Take pictures of the school condition.(done)

6. Write project proposal.

7. Secure donor funding.

8. Purchase the books from Xinhua bookstore, Xining bookstore and another bookstore named One Plus One.

9. Transport the books.

10. Distribute the books to the school and let teachers check the number of the books.

11. Go to school and interview the teachers and students.

12. Take pictures.

13. Write final report.

14. Send final report and the receipts.

Budget

Total Cost: 24,232.2 rmb

Total requested from Donor: 14,464.2 rmb

* The average price of each Chinese book is 12.44 rmb, and each English book is 16.5 rmb.

** Transportation fee: First to transport the materials from Xining to Huazangsi (Tianzhu County) will cost 1,000 rmb. Transporting materials from Huazangsi (Tianzhu County) to Yueya Wan School, will cost 600 rmb.

#management expenses: Money spent on phone call to the teachers in Yueya Wan Primary School and parents of children who are attending in this school; take picture, and manager travel expenses.

*Detailed list of Chinese books

* Detailed list of English books

Sustainability
The school leader Mr. Wang Tiandong and teachers, who have been chosen as the main librarians, will take responsibility for making sure the books are not damaged or lost. Teaching materials will be protected well by teachers. Also each grade will choose two students to be librarians, and they will take turns to monitor the books. They will make certain rules in the library. Each month, the school leader will take an inventory of all the books.

A map of the project location

This project is to buy 955 books that include Tibetan and Chinese books for Zhang Da Primary School.
In order to motivate the children to attend school and to improve the students’ reading skills and basic academic knowledge; to reduce the illiteracy rate in Zhang Da village.

Asia Foundation funded this project

What? To buy 355Tibetan, 600Chinese books for teachers and students in Zhang da School to improve their study level and teaching method as well as expand their knowledge.

Who? Students and teachers in ZhangDa School, Limu Town, Lu huo County, Gai zi  Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China

Photos of project implementation

Books were putted on the book shelves in the school literary

Grade two students were reading the books in the class room

Students were reading the books during the break times ，

Project summary

Project title: Book Project for Zhang Da School

Project goals: The immediate goal of this project is to buy 955 books that include Tibetan and Chinese books for Zhang Da Primary School. The overarching goal of this project is to motivate the children to attend school and to improve the students’ reading skills and basic academic knowledge; to reduce the illiteracy rate in Zhang Da village.

The project location: The project is located in Zhang Da Village and it is in Li Mu Township, Lu Huo County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province. And the village is about 654 Kilometers away from Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan province. Zhang Da village is 291 Kilometers away from Kang Ding town. From Zhang Da village to Lu Huo County town is 15 kilometers. Zhang Da primary school is at Zhang Da village.

Total beneficiaries: This project will directly benefit 63students and 5 teachers in Zhang Da primary school and 533 villagers indirectly in Zhang Da village. In total 601 people will get benefit from the Project.

Implementation organization/individual
Sonam Droma （Nancy）, Mr. Li(the school leader of Zhang Da school)  Ni ma (the village leader of Zhang Da village) and Shem Women’s Group

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Source, Amount, and Date Received
Shem Women’s Group gave 7,329rmb on 8^th March 2009 to the project manager (Sonam Droma).

The project steps
1) At the beginning of July 2008 the proposal was designed and the related information related of the book project was collected.
2) In August the project proposal was completed.
3) The project was funded by The Asia Foundation.
4) Sonam Droma (the project manager) received 7,329 rmb from Shem Women’s Group on 8^th March 2009.
5)The project manager(Sonam Droma) contacted the book store and Zhang Da primary school leader to discuss the start date of the project.
5) On May 2009, transported the books to Zang Da School.
6) On May 2nd, the book project was completed and the school started to use the books.
7) On June 13^th 2009, the project manager started to work on the final report.

Project Finance

Note: ** the left money has sent back to Shem Women’s Group

Delays, Difficulties, and lessons learned
Delays
After receiving the funds for the project from Shem, I purchased books in Cheng du and, since I couldn’t buy the Tibetan books for primary students so I had waited for around 5 days, then I bought the Chinese books and looking for transportation that transport the books in Luhuo and I couldn’t find there for delayed several days. And then I went to Kangding to buy the rest of Tibetan books but the books store have no enough books so they got to reserved in Qinghai and then delayed about ten days.

Difficulties
During the project implementation, the most serious problem which I encountered was that I could not find transportation to take the books to Zhang Da School, because the books were few and the truck driver asked extreme expensive transportation fee, , and another difficulties are that some the transportation fee that I had spend got no tickets. And I couldn’t get Tibetan children’s books in Cheng Du as well in Kang Ding, then I bought the half of Tibetan books in Kangding, additionally that the school had no camera and I couldn’t take picture and had waited for a long time to get camera.

Lessons learned
During the implementing of the book project, the most important thing I had learned was that I had really to be very responsible and motivate , and patient no matter how people disagree with you shall be very calm and think clearly how you are going to organize your project. And the most important thing is that motivation organization and perseverance are the keys to achieve your goal. And another thing which I learned was that one needs to be ready to convince and negotiate with others. I learnt that when we are implementing a project that any unexpected things can happen and one needs to be ready to solve it and take decisions.

Thank you letter

Translation of Thank you letter

Dear the Asia Foundation,

Thank you very much for your donation for my school, we have received about 955books including Chinese and Tibetan. Your donation broadens both school teachers and students’ knowledge and provided favorable conditions for enhancing the cultural quality. It also provided a favorable environment for book supply in our school and it is like just to provide fire in the snow. Here I represent all the students and teachers to express your endless support and help. The school teachers and students, will work hard, study and never forget your kindness!

                                       Zhang Da primary School
Mr. Li (teacher)
March 20^th 2009

Receipts

Receipts #1

Those two receipts are for books and totally cost 6,652rmb includes Tibetan, and Chinese books.

Receipts #2

These receipts are for transportation fee and totally cost 530 rmb

Receipts#3

These receipts are for hotel fee in Kang ding and it totally cost 70 RMB

2. Students lack motivation for attending school
Students who do not have access to interesting study materials have little motivation for attending school. Most students at Zhang Da Primary School are around five years old and only have access to basic books, such as alphabet books. There are no picture books, story books or child-friendly books, so students are less excited about learning.

3. Have no access to a variety of teaching materials
Teachers teach students some basic knowledge such as the 30 alphabets in Tibetan. Without teaching materials like books with colorful pictures they cannot explain new concepts to 4 or 5 year old children well. It is difficult for the children to comprehend some thing new. Teachers need materials that can make children understand easily, so that their teaching will be easier. Now teachers found out that about 30% of the students even cannot write their own names in grade one.

4. Few students pass the entrance exam of middle and high school
Without build a good foundation, a house will not stay strong. Likewise, without knowing basic knowledge, it is hard for the students to pass the middle school and high school entrance exam, which is big obstacle to their future that will probably drop them from the school and end their education career. Without pass the exams they will have no more chance to attend school but to earn money by digging caterpillar fungus or herding. Only a few students got into middle and high school from the primary school. Most students can not pass the entrance exam of middle and high school due in part to a lack study materials.

5. Ignorance of Tibetan history
The school does not provide the students with interesting Tibetan books and folk tales which were fit for children to read. Consequently students who were in grade 4 in primary school do not know famous persons in Tibetan history.

Benefits
1.If the book resources are adequate, students have access to better knowledge
If the school’s resources improved, students would have access to other books besides their textbooks. Teachers can use the new books as teaching materials. Interesting, child-friendly books make their teaching more interesting and easier, thus students can learn easily. If they can read books which they are really are interested in then they get meaning from the text. Consequently they will have more motivation to go to school and they won’t be punished by teachers. Their attitude towards studying will change. Students’ knowledge will become broader and they will have the opportunity to learn many things that they cannot learn from their present textbooks. They will gain more knowledge about the outside world, and their motivation and interest in learning will increase. Their future will be more hopeful and their goals will become bigger.

2. Students will be more motivated to attend school
If the school has a library that has lots of interesting stories for the students to read then the students will be willing to go to school. The teachers can bring the new books and readings in the class and thus the students will learn new things. Simultaneously, their reading skills will improve, and their curiosity for knowledge will improve. They will be more motivated to attend school. If the parents found that their children are willing to go school and they are getting good scores on the exams, then they will be more willing to send their children to school.

3. The school will have good teaching materials
It’s easy for teachers to teach students with interesting tales and pictures. They can explain concepts easily and clearly, so the students can understand what the teacher is teaching. Automatically these materials can motivate students to pay attention to the class and participate in class activities. They will learn more in the class.

4. More students will pass the entrance exam of middle and high school
The students’core for middle and high school entrance exam will improve with a better foundation of basic knowledge. Students will have better chances to enter middle school and high school. Simultaneously they will have more chances to study and step toward their dreams of a brilliant future.

5. Understanding Tibetan history
Children can read Tibetan books that are related to Tibetan culture and tradition, like simple folktales. On the other hand, they will not ignore Tibetan culture and tradition which makes them who they are. Also in high school or college they can explore more about Tibetan culture and tradition. Therefore, it will be easoer for the students to learn Tibetan culture and tradition when the students enter high school and college.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit 63 students and 5 teachers in Zhang Da Primary School and 533 villagers in Zhang Da Village will benefit indirectly. In total 601 people will benefit from the Project.

Gender equality
If the project is completed, more and more children will be sent to school and will be motivated to stay in school, especially girls. Before people believed that it is futile to send girls to school and they believed that the girls cannot achieve as boys, but if I successfully complete this project, then this will impact their attitude toward girls.

Government Approval
I contacted the local government leader on 15^th, May, 2008 and he permitted me to do this project and was willing to support the project. He strongly encouraged me to implement this project.

The project steps

1. Contacted the school leader and discussed with teachers the urgent needs. (Done)
2. Get information about what kinds of books students want to read.
3. Contacted the book store and asked for price quotes. (Done)
4. Write proposal. (Done)
5. Secure donor funding.
6. Purchase the books from Xin hua book store in Chengdu City
7. Transport the books to the school.
8. Interview the teachers, students and villagers.
9. Take pictures.
10.Send final report with receipts.

Time Frame
1day: inform the school leader that the project was funded and ask them to prepare the shelves.

2 days: Purchasing the books in in Xin hua book store in Cheng du City 7 days: Transport the books from Xining to Zhangda primary school.

1 day: Hold a meeting in Zhang Da Primary School with teachers and students.

1day: Put all the books in the well prepared library and put them in order

1day: Take pictures of the students and books.

In total it will take 13 days to carry out the project.
Detailed Budget

Total donor contribution is 7,339rmb=$1,075

(1)This includes the expenses of bus from Xining City to the school, the hotel reservation in Chengdu City, when the project manager is purchasing the books, and also phone calls to the local government and the school leader.

(2)I will purchase the books in Xin hua book store in Cheng du City. Transport the book from Chengdu City to Kang ding by taxi approximately costs 200rmb and from Kang ding to Luhuo county by the same taxi it will cos100rmb. Then from county town to Zhangda primary school it’s 10 rmb. Transporting the books from Cheng du to Zhang Da Village will cost 310rmb in total.

# 50 to 60 copies of some books are being ordered so that teachers can use class sets of the books. Each student can borrow a copy of the book for the lesson.

Sustainability
All the teachers will be responsible for the books in the school. A female teacher called Mu lo will make rules for the library and keep the library clean. She is going to take the responsibility for arranging the library, and making sure that the books are not damaged or stolen. If any books are lost from the library then the teacher will pay for replacement books.

Map of the project location

To Buy 534 books and 6 maps and 1 terrestrial globe for Mapa Middle School to improve the students’general knowledge and create higher possibilities for the students in Mapa Middle School to pass the high school entrance examination.

TRA Fund supported this project

Klu mo skyid is from Lhakang Village, Bao’an Township, Tongren County (Rebgong County), Huangnan Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. She is studying for her Bachelor’s Degree in Qinghai Normal University.

What? Buy 534 books (160 Tibetan books, 181 Chinese books, 193 English books) and 6 maps and 1 terrestrial globe for Mapa Middle School.

Who? Mapa Middle School located in Mapa area, Bao’an Township, Tongren County (Rebgong County), Huangnan Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China.

Photos of Project Implementation

These are the books which the project manager and one of Mapa Middle School Leader -Tshe `brug mkhr bought from Xinhua book store, Xining city. The Book shelf is provided by the school. There are 534books (160 Tibetan books, 181 Chinese books, 193 English books, 6maps, and 1terrestrial globe.)

The students were reading books after the books arrived in Mapa Middle School library. They were very interested in the new books, especially the novels in Tibetan, Chinese and English.

Sgrol ma was reading the new books, she is very happy that she can read those new books. She is eager to borrow books from the library. Since she had a low level in Chinese, she was very happy that she can improve her Chinese level through reading books from the library.

Project Summary
Project Title: Book Project for Mapa Middle School

Project Goals: The overarching goal of this project is to improve the students’ general knowledge and create higher possibilities for the students in Mapa Middle School to pass the high school entrance examination. The immediate goal of this project is to buy 534books (160 Tibetan books, 181 Chinese books, 193 English books) and 6 maps and 1 terrestrial globe for Mapa Middle School.

Location of this Project: Mapa Middle School is located in Lhakang Village, Mapa, Bao’an Town, Tongren County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, china. Tongren County is about 181 kilometers from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province.

Project beneficiaries: This project directly benefits around 214 students and 32 teachers in Mapa Middle School and about 5,285 villagers indirectly benefited from this project.

Implementation organization/individual: Tshe `brug mkhar(one of a teacher in Mapa Middle School ), Shem Women’s Group and Klu mo skyid (Project manager).

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Amount and date received
Klumo Skyid received 80% of grant which is 7,525 from Shem Women’s Group in April 2009 and she will receive the rest money after she completed the project, 20 % grant is 1,882 RMB, so the total grant for this project is 9,407 rmb.

Details of project activities

1.  Contacted the school leaders and teachers discussed the urgent needs with them.
2.  Collected the village background information and school information.
3.  Held a meeting with the school teachers and found out what kinds of books the students really need.
4.  Went to the bookstore and found out the price of the books.
5.  Checked exact transportation fee with a driver.
6.  Wrote project proposal.
7.  Received funds.
8.  Purchased the books from Xinhua book store and the bus station book store in Xining City, Qinghai province.
9.  Distributed the books.
10.  Took pictures and interviewed the project beneficiaries.
11.  Wrote the final report.
Project Finance

Note(*-200): Originally I planed that transportation fee would be paid by the local school，but since there was money left from the donor contribution, so I spent donor’s money 200rmb on the transportation fee.

Difficulties and lesson learned
Delay
There was one reason for delaying the project when the funds arrived. It was very difficult to ask for several days to leave from the school, so I implemented this project during the May holiday. And Mapa Middle School has no holiday, because they are preparing for county unite examination competition in June.

Difficulties
Because of financial crisis, most of the books have raised their price. And several books had no enough quantity that we had planned to buy before. So I have checked the budget again and looked for new plan in Xinhua Book Store on 29^th April, and I also waited one day for getting enough quantity of books. Moreover, it’s quite necessary to contact with the book store to make sure book prices and quantity of the books you need.

Lessons learned
I learned that it is really important to do more research on the current prices of books. The prices would change rapidly no matter whether or not you checked books’ prices just four months before.

Interviews

Cho sgron is from Lha kang village, now she is in her second year in Mapa Midde middle school. There are four people in her family, her parents, two brothers and her. Three of them are going to school. She said it’s very difficult that her parents to buy other books for them beside the text books. She also said that she was very happy that she can borrow some books, which are related to the high school entrance examination. She was paying her great gratitude toward the TRA fund.

Klu rgyal is a good student in the class, he is doing very well on his study and helping others as well as he could. He likes to read short stories, short novels and compositions very much. As the students placed the books on the books shelves, he grabbed a Tibetan book and told me, that he will read as many books as he could. When I was interviewing him, he told that there aren’t any books in the school that they are really interested in. As a result, many students in his class are gotten bored in the school. This time there are lots of books that he really wants read. He also said that he was pretty sure many students will be interested in the books and the students will gain interest in the study.

Tshe‘brug mkhr is a responsible teacher in the school. He paid his great gratitude toward TRA foundation, helped Mapa Middle School. He said, “I am really happy that I can read more materials, which related to the text books, especially I can use terrestrial globe to explain geographic points. I had more confidence to improve                students’ interests in geography. Before I encouraged the parents to buy books which could improve their children’s interests, but I found there were a very few families could do that, since their income is low. It’s very happy that we don’t need to encourage parents to buy as many as books, which are related to the exams.”

Letter of appreciation
a) Letter of appreciation from Mapa Middle School

Translation of the letter of appreciation from Mapa Middle School

Dear the TRA fund,
In this competitive and developing 21^st century, our Tibetan students are hard working and eager to study new technology very much. Therefore, we need to study more knowledge to improve ourselves. Since the knowledge is boundless and the society is developing speedily, it is quite difficult to use our little knowledge to satisfy the requirement of society. So it is very necessary to read many books to enlarge our knowledge.
Thank you very much for your donation to buy books to improve our knowledge.
All of our teachers and students are paying great appreciation to TRA fund.
Sincerely,
Rebgong Mapa Middle School
Padma rdo rje (headmaster)
2009-5-1
Receipts

Receipt #1

This is the transportation fee receipt, it is200RMB

Receipt #2

Above two receipts are for books that I bought from the Xinhua book store in Xining city, Qinghai province and it total cost 9,207rmb

Original Proposal

Project Location
Mapa Middle School is located in Lhakang Village, Mapa, Bao’an Town, Tongren County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. Tongren County is about 181 kilometers from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province.

School Background
Mapa Middle School is located in Lhakang Village, Mapa Bao’an Town. The school was built in 1980s.There are seven villages’ students study in this school. The students are from Lhakang, Rizha, Qiongwu, Donggan, Khagyal, Nagyal and Jam villages. This school has 214 students (84 girls and 130 boys) and most of them are Tibetan, a few students are Tu (an ethnic group). Also, there are 32 teachers in this school. The school has six-year primary school and three year junior school. This school offered dormitories for the students who live in far villages since 2005. One third number of students (about 70 students) lives in the school. The school pays more money on desks, stools, chemicals instruments, electric fee, and coals in the winter and the school buy lots of prizes for many competitions which increasing students study interest. The school has eight classrooms, one computer room, two offices and one library. The school mainly teaches the students Tibetan, Chinese, Math, Chemistry, Physics, History, Geography, Biology and Arts.

Village Background
Population
There are about 500 households of 3,000 people in Mapa area which include seven small Tibetan villages: Lhakang, Rizha, Qiongwu, Donggan, Khagyal, Nagyal and Jam villages. Around 500 children, 1,500 men, and 1,000 women are in those seven villages.

Education
In this area, 64% of the people are illiterate. There are around 36% of the people who are literate, including people who attended schools and monks and nuns who studied Tibetan in monasteries. Now among about 3,000 people there are just about 500 students in those seven villages. Of these 500 people around 70% are primary and middle school students and 30 % are high school and university students.
The high rate of illiteracy is caused by a number of factors, including:
1) Poverty, i.e., families unable to afford tuition.
2) Labor, i.e., families need all family members to work on the farmland.
3) Lack of motivation, i.e., families do not know the importance of education.

Cash income
In this area there are three main ways to earn income: farming, digging for caterpillar fungus, and unskilled labor. The average income in per family is
about6500RMB.Most families only have three or four mu of land (one mu is about 667 m²). Families can earn about 500 – 600 RMB per year by selling wheat. Families can also earn income by digging for caterpillar fungus, a highly-prized medicinal herb. On average, each person can earn about
2,000 RMB from harvesting these cater pillar fungus. Additionally, families normally send one family member to work on construction projects, such as building walls or digging ditches. One person can earn about 1,000 RMB for two month’s worth of labor. Most families have two people who can go to dig caterpillar fungus and work for outside.
50%of the money they earned is spent on their children’s tuition fee. They just spend about 1,000rmb for their essential, like clothes, electricity and instruments which are really needed for their family. The money which is earned from access wheat, about 500~600RMB, spent on fertilizer in the spring. All the farmers spend at least 1,000rmb to celebrate Tibetan spring festival days every year. As a result, it is quite difficult to have enough money for them, so they always borrow money from the banks or their relatives which income is higher than them.

Agriculture
The farmers in the seven villages mainly grow wheat, potatoes and rapeseed once. On average, they produce about 1,500 kg wheat, 100 kg rapeseeds and 150 kg potatoes. Some families own 3 mu of land and are able to sell their excess wheat to earn about 500 RMB each year. Most families only have 2 mu of land, which produces only enough for the family to live off.

Herding
All of these villages are farming areas and villagers generally do not keep animals. Among all of the families only about 30% keep one cow, for milking, and one mule, for cultivating lands.

Problems
1.Not enough money for material which the students could read outside of class: Families do not have enough money to buy reading materials for their children, and buying books for their children is not in their consideration.
2.Students lose their interest in study: As a student, first they have to be interested in studying and then they can gain more knowledge. But in this school, besides teaching material, the students do not have access to any material that they like to read. So gradually they lose interest in their studies
3.The students fail their high school entrance exams: Students do not have access to additional reading materials that could help them on their High School Entrance exam. Many students who do not pass the exam just go home after graduating from middle school.

Benefits
1) If this project is funded, then students could read more materials outside of the class and at home. Also, the families do not need to worry about buying books for their children.
2) If this project is funded, the students’ interest in studying will be stronger than before. Students will have access to a wide variety of interesting reading materials.
3) If this project is funded, more and more students’ education level will be improved since they have more studying materials to be reviewed. In this case more and more students will have higher possibilities to pass the high school entrance exam.

Project goals
The immediate goal of this project is to buy 571 books (160 Tibetan books, 211 Chinese books, 193 English books) and 6 maps and 1 terrestrial globe for Mapa Middle School.
The overarching goal of this project is to improve the students’ general knowledge and create higher possibilities for the students in Mapa Middle School to pass the high school entrance examination.

Beneficiaries
This project will directly benefit around 214 students and 32 teachers in Mapa Middle School and about 5,285 villagers will indirectly benefit from this project.

Steps of the Project
1. Contact the school leaders and teachers, discuss the urgent needs with them. (Completed)
2. Collect village background information and school information. (Completed)
3. Hold a meeting with the school teachers and find out what kinds of books the students really need. (Completed)
4. Go to the bookstore and find out the price of the books. (Completed)
5. Check exact transportation fee with a driver.
6. Write project proposal.
7. Receive funds.
8. Purchase the books from Xinhua book store and the bus station book store in Xining City, Qinghai province.
9. Distribute the books.
10. Take pictures and interview the project beneficiaries.
11. Write the final report.

Timeframe
The project will take 3 weeks to complete.
First week: Purchase Chinese and English books from Xinhua Book Store and Tibetan books from Bus Station Book store in Xining City.
Second week: Transport the books from Xining to Mapa Middle School and distribute the books to the school.
Third week: Check detailed budget and write final report.

Gender equality
All students of Mapa Middle School will benefit from this project. Classes will choose two girls and two boys to act as student librarians, giving young girls an important opportunity to learn management skills. Additionally, as a young woman from this community, the fact that I will implement and manage the project will improve villagers’ perceptions about educated girls. This will hopefully change villagers’ views about sending girls to school.

Governmental Support
In June, 2008 the project manger asked the township leader Jiumeidorjee whether we could help Mapa Middle school. The leader gave full permission and encouraged me to do this project.

Sustainability
This project is sustainable, because all the teachers and students will get great benefits from this project. The school chose one teacher, Caizhoukha, as a supervisor and chose four students (2 females and 2 males) as the librarians; they will be responsible for keeping the books from being spoiled. In order to keep the books in good condition, the school has planned to issue written rules and regulations for using the books. There are some practical regulations for the students, for example if they damage the books they will need to repair them, students need to return the books in one week, and if one student loses a book then that student needs to pay 100 RMB. It is not acceptable to write anything on the books; if students violate the rules they have to clean the library for one week as their punishment.

Project Budget

Note: Management Expenses includes Phone calls, internet fee, photos and bus fare from Xining to project
location
Donor Contribution: 9,482.5 RMB
Local Contribution: 4,350 RMB
Shem Contribution: 500 RMB
Total Cost: 14,430.5 RMB

Detailed list of books

Additional Information
Lumokyid has completed two projects under the supervision of Charlotte Pederson, teacher at Huangnan Nationalities School. In 2005, Lumokyid completed a second-hand clothes project. More than 30 poor people benefited from this project .In 2006, she implemented a solar cooker project that benefited more than 250 people in Lhakang village, Bao’an Township, Rebgong County, a project funded by the ETWA Foundation. In 2007, she worked with “Global Route” in Xunhua county, Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, China. Also, she taught English to 50 Tibetan students with 20 foreigners for almost 20 days.

Map of the project location

To buy Tibetan, English and Chinese books for teachers and students in Dordan School to improve their study level and teaching method as well as expand their knowledge.

The Asia Foundation funded this project

Rinchen Tso is from Xunwa Village, Daowei Township Xunhua County, Haidong Region, Qinghai Province, China. She is currently working towards an associated degree in English at the Qinghai Normal University Nationalities Department English Training Program.
What? To buy Tibetan, English and Chinese books for teachers and students in Dordan School to improve their study level and teaching method as well as expand their knowledge.

Who? Students and teachers in Dortan School, Meixiu Town, Zeku County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China

Photos of project implementation

The students and the teachers are taking the books to school library.

Dordan School leader Luodan Tairang and project manager Rinchen Tso (Ava)

The school teachers are roughly looking over the books that they got from the project.

The project books are displaying in the school library.

The students are happy to have many books to read.

Project summary

Project title: Book Project for Drodan School

Project goal: The overall goal of the project is to increase students’ attendances and improve their study level, make the students more interested in study, in other way this project can encourage parents to send their children to school. The immediate goal of the project is to buy 1,061 books (English, Chinese, and Tibetan) for Dordan Primary and Middle school library.

Location of project: Meixiu Town is about 40 kilometers from Zeku County and it is in the southeast of Zeku County. Zeku County is 290 kilometers from Xining City and is situated in Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. All the people in this area are Tibetan.

Total beneficiaries: This book project benefited whole Dordan School including teachers, students, and householders. Approximately 1,100 people got benefit from this project directly.

Implementation organization/individual
RinchenTso（Ava）, Mr. Zhang (Zeku county leader), and Shem Women’s group.

Contact Group: Shem Women’s Group

Funds received: Source, Amount, and Date Received
Shem Women’s Group gave 29,124rmb on 8^th March 2009 to the project manager (Rinchen Tso).

The project steps
1) In the beginning of October 2008 the proposal was designed and the information related to the book project was collected.
2) In December the proposal was completed.
3) The project was funded by The Asia foundation.
4) Rinchen Tso (the project manager) received 2, 9124 RMB from Shem Women’s Group on 8^th March 2009. The project manager contacted the book store and Dordan school leader to discuss the start date of the project.
5) On March 18^th 2009, transported the books to Dordan School.
6) On March 19^th, the book project was completed and the school started to use the books.
7) On March 19^th 2009 the project manager (Rinchen Tso) interviewed Dordan school both teachers and students.
8) On March 22^nd 2009, the project manager started to work on the final report.

Notes
Receipt # 1: there are no any changes in the budge section, because project manager Rinchen Tso contacted bookstore and gave the book list before bought all the books. And they prepared well when she bought the books.
Receipt # 2: Project Manager Rinchen Tso (Ava)’s father helped her to be able to hire a cheap truck therefore less money spent on transporting books to the school so the project manager just collected less transportation fee from local people.

Delays, Difficulties, and lessons learned
Delays
Starting date for the project was delayed for several days, because boss of the bookstore went Beijing with my book list and the workers in the bookstore did not know the list and I waited for boss until he came back.

Difficulties
During the project implementation, the most serious problem which I encountered was that I could not find cars to take the books to Dordan School, because the transportation fee that I wrote on the budget is not enough and then I called my father and he helped me to find a cheap truck.

Lessons learned
During the implementing of the book project, one thing which I learned was that one needs to be ready to convince and negotiate with others. Communication is the key to come to terms with others, especially when disagreements and conflicts among people arise. I learnt that when we are implementing a project that any unexpected things can happen and one needs to be ready to solve it and take decisions. For example, when there are no cars to take the books to Dordan School then I called the school leader and he helped me to solve the problem.

Interviews

Teacher Drojie, He has been teaching math in Dordan School for seven years, but the students do not have any math exercise books to teach besides their text book，so he said now he will use the exercise books and teaching students as much as he can.

Luodan Tsirang, Duodan School leader, he thanks for the Asia foundation, Shem Women’s Group and project manager Rinchen Tso (Ava) for donating books for Dordan School and he said he will be responsible for all the books.

Tsomo(Chinese teacher) and Jiluo(Dordan school cook), Teacher Tsomo came to Dordan School last year and she said they lack the needed books and if students only rely on teacher, then they could not improve much. She also said that it is hard to teach students. Jilou has two children and both of her children are studying in Drodan School, but they never buy books for children except the books brought in the school, she was really happy that the Asia Foundation donated such books to school.

Danba, He has been teaching Tibetan in Dordan School for thirty-six years, but this is the first time that he saw many interesting books besides the text books and he said he will use those books to improve students’ Tibetan knowledge.

Yangji, Suonan and Geden , Three of them were from one family and their father died last year from car crash, and so their mother is the only one who is taking care three of them, Yangji is oldest child among them and she is studying in grade six and Sunan is the second one who is studying in grade four. Geden is the youngest one studying in grade two, but as their teacher said three of them study very hard and they are always in the top of their class.

Thank you letter

The translation of school’s Thanks Letter  

Dear the Asia Foundation

Thank you very much for your donation for my school, we have received about 2000 books including English, Chinese, Tibetan and other types of multi-section books. Your donation broaden both school teachers and students’ knowledge and provided favorable conditions for enhance the cultural quality. It also provided a favorable environment for book supply in our school and it is like just to provide fire in the snow. Here I represent all the students and teachers to express my endless thanks to you and thanks for your strong support of the school and help! School teachers and students, will work hard, study and never forget your kindness!

From Dordan School

16^th March 2009

Receipt #1




Those above receipts are for books and totally cost 29761RMB includes Tibetan, English and Chinese books

Receipt #2



Above the receipts are the Transportation fees it totally cost 320RMB.

Receipts # 3

This receipt is for management expenses and it was cost 100 RMB.

School background
Drodan School was establishing in 1964. In 1985 the school started a Five Year Plan to become a primary school; the school was renamed Duodan Primary School. In of 2002 the local government established the middle school called Drodan Nine Years Compulsory Education School. Drodan School, which refers to both the primary and middle schools, is located in the east side of the Meixiu Town. The school teaches ten different grades. The school property covers 61,268.8 square meters. There are 803 students in this school, 505 students from middle school level and 298 students are from the primary school level. There are 316 female students and 487 male students. 90% of students are from Meixiu Town (this town is made up six villages) and 10% of students are from other counties like Jianzha County and Regong County. There are 52 teachers in this school. The primary school only teaches three subjects: Tibetan, Chinese and Math. In the middle school level the students study Tibetan, Chinese, Math, English, Chemistry, Geography, Politics, Physics, Physical Education and Music.

Education
Meixiu Town has had a historically low level of education. This is largely due to poor attendance rates. Limited income is the root of the problem. In recent years many children were not sent to school because families could not afford tuition. Even if families can afford to send their children to school, it is difficult for young graduates to find official government jobs. This causes some parents to believe that spending on education is a waste of money. Families with higher incomes have a higher retention rate than families with lower incomes.

Another factor that contributes to the low level of education is the cultural attitude about education. Female school-aged children are often kept at home as assistants for housework or are married off when they are young.  Also, some parents believe that the traditional way of life (i.e., herding and marrying off) should be inherited by the younger generations.

40% of school-aged children stay at home and help their parents. In Dordan School there are 829 students in total, of which 316 are girls and 513 are boys.