Daoming Schools

First visit to Mataipo

First visit to the Miao village of Mataipo

 

Mataipo - Daoming-3

 

On June 25, a group of four people from SP Edify (St. Paul Fund for the Education Infrastructure of the Ethnic Minorities in Yunnan Province (China) visited the Miao village of Mataipo, about 6 km away from the city of Kaiyuan . Like the people of Hongpotou and Zhangpojiao, the inhabitants of this town also belong to the so-called ""black people, black family."" The government now calls it people of ""spontaneous movement"", but although the name is different, the actual living situation has not changed.

The village of Mataipo is located in the line dividing the mountainous area and the zone of tropical climate. The weather is humid and the temperature does not have major changes, very suitable for agriculture. But people are still used to planting a single crop, like corn, and only in very few cases we see other types of more effective farming. For a long time, people rise every day before dawn and works hard all day long, but are unable to leave their extreme poverty.
Today, Mataipo has a population of 101 families with an annual per capita income of about 300 RMB. School-age children are more than 90. In the past, the village had a very simple primary school but, for unknown reasons, this elementary school closed a few years ago and today is on the verge of collapsing. So, now, if the children want to go to a primary school, they have to go to the town of Santaipu, about 6 km away. This means that these students must walk for about two hours and we can imagine the added difficulty in case of rain or cold time.
mtpv1 01-27

During our visit to Mataipo, we have experienced many emotions: the warmth and affection of the people, the hope and expectation of children, our gratitude for the efforts made by a number of government officials in order to build this school, as well as the dedication of several Miao and Han teachers graduated from the Normal University, who expressed their willingness to come to this new school to teach. After several efforts to coordinate our work with government departments, we have decided to build in Mataipo our primary school Daoming-3. We expect to begin construction on June 28, 2008.

Main Menu