Chinese Karaoke for Charity
‘Project Hope in China’
Project Hope is a public welfare undertaking, initiated and organised by the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF), that enlists extensive support from home and abroad to assist dropout students and those at risk of dropping out to continue schooling in China’s rural, poverty-stricken areas. In addition to funding these student’s studies and building schools, the CYDF has also sought to improve the educational conditions in these rural areas (including teacher training) and strengthen the government’s efforts in implementing a nine-year compulsory education law. Commonly acknowledged as China’s most influential public welfare campaign in the 20th century, Project Hope has attracted enthusiastic participation from domestic audiences of all ages as well as from those overseas. The late Chinese leader Mr. Deng Xiaoping even honored Project Hope by inscribing its logo.
By the end of 2002, Project Hope had raised over RMB2 billion in donations, which had helped 2.47 million children and teenagers from poor families to continue their schooling and provided Stars of Hope Scholarships to altogether 111,672 students. Furthermore, Project Hope funded the construction of 9,508 Hope primary schools in poverty-stricken regions and donated 10,000 Hope mini-library sets and 3,000 Sunchime film library sets, which include audio-visual products for primary education and the equipment needed to view them. In addition, Project Hope funds had enabled over 19,135 village primary school teachers to receive further training.
Guizhou Province locates on the Yungui Plateau in the southeast of China. The provincial economy is rather lagged behind the coastal area with 3.04 million people in poverty conditions whose annual per-capita income is under 80 US dollars. Every year there are large numbers of children dropping out of school for poverty and most of them have to help their parents make a living by feeding cattle and goats.
Project Hope In China