Report on the work done by SP Edify during 2007.
Work Report 2007
Yunnan is situated on the south western frontier of China. It is a multiracial, mountanous and frontier place. Due to different historical, social and economic reasons, a great part of its population still live under the powerty line suffering from hunger and thirst. Powerty has also greatly influenced the education of its people. ""Houses built on four sticks, beds on two pieces of wood, kitchens made up of two stones, a piece of rope as belt"" describe the living and housing conditions of its people truthfully.
SP Edify – Saint Paul School Fund for the creation of educational infrastructure for the small ethnic minorities in the province of Yunnan – formally started to work on November 23th. 2006. From June 2006, as one of the founder members of this organization, I worked on the planning of the Daoming primary schools. After a long period of investigation, SP Edify decided to open its first Daoming primary school – “Daoming-1” in the village of Hongpotou, near the mining area of Xiaolongtan, in the vicinity of Kaiyuan. In September 2006, Saint Paul School Administrator brought 5 people from Macau, including students, parents and teachers, who, after witnessing personally the situation, approved the construction of our first primary school.
The construction started on November 2006, and, after more than one year of work, SP Edify has opened already two primary schools: Hongpotou-Daoming 1, with an investment of 80,000.00 RMB y Zhangpojiao-Daoming 2, with an investment of 120,000.00 RMB. The construction includes: 5 classes, 2 offices, 3 rooms for teachers residence, 2 basketball playgrounds, fixing of one kitchen and 2 toilets. Our schools have basic level, firs grade, third grade and fourth grade with a total of 97 students as for today. Daoming primary schools also contracted teachers graduated from the Normal University and every semester conduct medium-term and end-term examinations.
Through our web page, everybody had the opportunity to see the problem of the drinking water in Zhangpojiao: men and animals sharing the same water, water muddy and dirty with all sorts of worms in it. After witnessing this situation, SP Edify approved inmediately a project to purify the drinking water at whatever cost. Escola da Sagrada Familia from Macau have collaborated in the building of the school and the water purification works with the amount of 100,000.00 MOP. After 4 months, the works were completed and the water works received the name of ""Sacred Family's fountain"".
In September 2007, the works were finished, and now the population can drink clean water. After more than one year’s work, the educational project is also achieving good results: SP Edify has already started to help more than 40 orphaned students from poor regions. This help includes books and stationary, living and personal expenses. The goal is to let those students finish the secondary education, providing them with a good standard to pursue university studies. The investment in this area has reached the amount of 16,000.00 RMB.
As of December 2007, SP Edify has received a total of 509,000.00 RMB as donations, and has invested the amount of 496.294.64 RMB. The surplus is 12,955.36 RMB. From the year 2001 until 2006, donations received amounted to 76,171.00 RMB, therefore, the surplus at the end of 2007 is 89,126.36 RMB.
Chen Li
December 2007