Project Hope

Project Hope is a broad-based educational charity initiated and organized by the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF), a subsidiary of the Communist Youth League, in October 1989. In accordance with government guidelines for raising money for education, its main purpose is to raise money from all sectors of society to fund a Project Hope Foundation whereby students otherwise too poor to attend or remain in school can do so, and the physical conditions of their education can be improved. The foundation focuses on remote and poor areas, especially in western China. Its goal is to improve the standards and conditions of elementary education in those areas and to help all students stay in school, thereby also fulfilling the government policy of Nine Years’ Compulsory Education. Since 1989, the foundation has helped 23 million students enter or return to school, and about 8,000 Hope Schools have been built (the CYDF plans to provide on-line education to these schools).

Donations, totalling $1.8 billion by 2001, have come from individuals and groups, and from home and abroad, including businesses and Chinese communities in the USA. Disbursement of the money is controlled by the Project Hope Office in every province and major city. A Project Hope Grant may go directly to a student, school or area. Project Hope is the largest broad-based charity in China and is the most influential social programme for education in the PRC. Unfortunately, the Project has also been accused of corruption. In March of 2002, a lengthy piece of investigative journalism in Nanfeng Weekend documenting the misuse of funds was pulled at the last minute under pressure from the Ministry of Propaganda.

See also: literacy (and illiteracy); village schools

WANG XIAOLU