各位热心的同事和朋友：

看看，我们捐建的村小已经初现雏形了，这是我们在村小施工当地的监督方王校长寄来的最新照片。

• 在建工地

•  
  • 如照片所示，村小主体工程完成四分之三，砖墙接近完成。
  • 由于四川近来阴雨连绵，工地建设进展不如预想顺利。不过经再三确认，工程队保证今夏九月前竣工以确保下学期投入使用。

• 后续计划

•  
  • 在村小主体工程完成验收后，我会联系明日中华教育基金会汇给王校长五万元人民币，由王校长分批付给施工方。
  • 大家可能注意到，我们在募捐倡议书里提过，准备在学校的介绍铭牌刻上捐款达到或超过1000元（或200美元）的热心朋友的名字。随着学校的建设进展，现在需要征集捐的款达到或超过1000元（或200美元）的捐助人对此的意愿以及镌刻的姓名（比如以您可爱女儿的名义）。
  • 微软亚太研发集团关于公益慈善活动的七月初通讯，将会介绍这一项目，这是公司其他同事对于我们这一努力的认可，到时大家可以骄傲地向家人、朋友和其他同事展示宣传。感谢Jane Zheng的辛勤工作和对于项目的支持。
  • 提议原计划七月组织的项目讨论会延迟到八月底九月初，讨论大家关心的话题，包括第二阶段募捐、捐款使用、实地考察和支教安排。原因如下：

•  
  •  
    • 不少同事安排在七月份休假，所以在七月份组织项目讨论会和募捐的效果可能会不够理想。
    • 人力资源部将在九月初组织一次微软上海园区范围的爱心拍卖/义卖活动，形式与去年STBC为地震组织的爱心拍卖/义卖相似，我正与组织者协商争取将此项目作为受益项目。在此之前安排一次项目讨论会，有利于我们在爱心拍卖/义卖活动中更好地展示项目，争取人气，招募更多九月份去村小实地考察和志愿支教的朋友。

以前的项目进度报告，您可以在此找到：http://sharepointasia/sites/SichuanSchool。如果您有任何建议和意见，请联系我。

谢谢!

Hi, dear warmhearted colleagues and friends:

Look, you can see the rough shape of our village school now! J The photos are sent by Mr. Wang, the local supervisor for the school construction:

• Construction

•  
  • As shown in photos, ¾ of the main framework has been completed. The brick walls have almost been done.
  • The progress is a little bit slower than expected because there were many rainy days there. But I double checked with Mr. Wang that the construction team promises to complete the school construction before this September so that it can be used of the coming semester.

• Next Step

•  
  • After main framework is finished and checked, I will contact CTEF to send another 50K RMB to Mr. Wang, and then Mr. Wang will give it to construction team in different batches.
  • As you known, the “Call for Donation” letter mentioned that we plan to make a plaque listing the donor names above $200 (or 1000 RMB). Along with the school building process, now we’d like to check whether and whose name you wish to put on the plaque for yourself, e.g. it can be in the name of your lovely daughter.
  • Microsoft Asia-Pacific R&D group will have a charity focus newsletter at the beginning of the coming July, introducing this project. This is truly a recognition from other colleague for our effort. Please feel free to share the story with your family members, friends and other colleagues with proud! And thanks to Jane Zheng’s hard work on this and support for our project.
  • Propose to postpone the “July” project meeting to the end of August, discussing all topics interesting to you, such as fund raising, donation usage, school visit and volunteering teaching arrangement. The reasons behind this change are:

•  
  •  
    • Some colleagues have arranged July as vacation time, so the meeting and the 2^nd milestone of “call for donation” might not go as well as wished.
    • HR department is planning a charity auction event on early September, across all groups in Microsoft Shanghai campus. It will be pretty much like the one we had for earthquake last year in STBC. I’m discussing with the event organizer, and working on making our project as the target beneficiary. If scheduling a project discussion meeting right before that, it will help us prepare well to showcase the project, earn more eyeball and potentially recruit more friends for the school visiting and volunteering teaching on September.

You can find all previous status email on http://sharepointasia/sites/SichuanSchool. Feel free to contact me if you have concerns, suggestions or questions.

Thanks.

Zhen Wei

Editor’s note: This blog is written by our volunteer, Zhen Wei (魏臻), who is working for the Microsoft Technical Computing group in Shanghai, China. His group and CTEF are building a school in his hometown – Nanchong, Sichuan. He revisited the school recently and sent us this progress report. Click here to see his previous post on this school.

各位热心的同事和朋友：

我在4月30日探访了我们捐建村小的在建工地和在租用民房里学习的孩子们，具体情况和照片如下:  

• 在建工地
  • 村委会和工程队于四月份签订工程合同，约定工程完成时间为七月底，对材料规格等进行了细化设计和规定，并将教室宽度由原计划的6.5米改为国家教室标准的6米，符合实际需要。
  • 准备工作和辅助事宜
    • 征地完成，村小新校址就在现租用民房旁。
    • 简单修缮了连接公路和村小校址的乡村公路，以便从公路运送来的建筑材料能够经过小货车的二次搬运运到工地。
    • 工地用水准备就绪。
  • 工地：地基挖坑完成，地基石料运送在此后一天内完成。工地进度比预想的略慢，主要原因是四月中下旬当地下雨较多，简陋的乡村公路雨天泥泞，无法通车。
• 村小现状：
  • 村小现租用一楼一底两间民房作为教室，由照片可见比我们第一次去考察时教室条件稍有改善，因为房东去年在听说我们有意捐助村小后，改造原房屋以期夫妻教师用我们的捐款买或租做教室。考虑到改造后的房屋在通风采光和安全等方面不能达到正规教室的标准，而且如此办学对房东的依赖性太大，去年我和县教育局和乡中心小学老师去访问时拒绝了房东的提议。
  • 4月30日我达到时，村小刚好准备要放五一和农忙假，所以我只简单在二三年级合用的教室里拍了两张照片和一段视频。
• 捐款情况:
  • 我们项目在当地的监管代理方--乡完小王副校长出具10万元人民币首批工程款的收据，我已由挂号信寄给CTEF在杭州的副主席罗绍伟。
  • 我们在第一阶段捐款募集了约合10万人民币，加上公司的等额匹配刚好达到20万的村小建设预算。我准备在七月份村小接近竣工时，再发起一次较大规模的捐款倡议，以解决村小的桌椅和运动器材等。
  • 捐款情况，和以前的项目进展报告，请访问项目网站：http://sharepointasia/sites/SichuanSchool（公司内网）或http://blogs.technet.com/chinahpc/（外部网站）。
• 后续计划
  • 我会每两至三周发一次在建工地照片。
  • 七月组织一次项目讨论会，讨论大家关心的话题，包括募捐、捐款使用、实地考察和支教安排。

如果您有任何建议和意见，请联系我。

谢谢!

魏臻 四川山区村小项目经理

Hi, dear warmhearted colleagues and friends:

On 30th, April, I went to visit our village school in construction and lovely students studying in rented houses. Here comes the details and photos:

• Construction
  • The village committee has signed contract with a local construction team. The construction will be completed by the end of July; Some construction details such as material specification are designed and written down; The classroom width is changed from 6.5 meters of original plan to 6 meters, which is the national classroom standard and meets real requirement.
  • Preparation work
    • The land for new village school has been requisitioned for free. The new location is besides the current rented classrooms.
    • The country road, connecting road and the school, has been roughly fixed so that construction materials can be carried from road to school by small truck.
    • Water supply has been completed.
  • Main construction work: the ground foundation is almost done. The progress is a little bit slower than expected because there were many rainy days in April there, so that the country road is too bad for truck to get through.
• The current situation of the village school
  • The school is renting 2 classrooms from a peasant. If you look at the photo, the classrooms look a little bit better than the first time we saw them. This is because the landlord knew that we want to support the school, and then improved the houses, in order to sell or rent his houses to the couple teachers. However, the houses are still not qualified for standard classrooms even after improvement, and it will make the school take a hard dependency on landlord if the couple teachers accept his offer. As a result, we rejected this offer when county education bureau officer, village central teachers and I went to investigate the village school last year.
  • At my arrival time, the school is about to start the May Day holiday and busy farming vacation. So I just took 2 photos and one short video in one of the 2 classrooms.
• Donation:
  • Our local coordinator has written a receipt for the first project expense 100k RMB. And I have mailed it to vice president of CTEF Waisiu in Hangzhou.
  • We have raised about 100k RMB in the first fund raising milestone. Counting in company’s match, it’s about what we need for construction – 200k RMB. I plan to initial another wave of fund raising in July, in order to buy desks, chairs, sports apparatus, etc.
  • Please find the donation progress and previous status reports at the project website: http://sharepointasia/sites/SichuanSchool (Intranet) or http://blogs.technet.com/chinahpc/ (Extranet).
• Next Step
  • I will send construction photos every 2 to 3 weeks.
  • Have a project meeting in July, discussing all topics interesting to you, such as fund raising, donation usage, school visit and volunteering teaching arrangement.

Feel free to contact me if you have concerns, suggestions or questions.

Thanks!

Zhen Wei, Sichuan School Project Manager

Editor’s note: This blog is written by our volunteer, Zhen Wei (魏臻), who is working for the Microsoft Technical Computing group in Shanghai, China. His group and CTEF are fundraising together and trying to build a school in his hometown – Nanchong, Sichuan. If you would like to donate for this project, you can make an online donation or write a check to CTEF with the note “Microsoft TC School in Sichuan”. 

我们微软高性能计算上海团队去年探访了四川省一所条件艰苦的村小，那正是我的家乡所在地。我们当时带去一些教学物资，捐了7000多人民币，之后其他团队有的同事也表示出了捐助的意愿。在此，我们恳请大家更进一步地支持慈善、传递爱心 –– 我们将会争取募捐到20万人民币（约3万美元），为那里的孩子们建立一所希望小学。

· 目标简介 我们想与明日中华教育基金会（CTEF）合作，捐建一所小规模的小学。CTEF旨在帮助改善中国农村教育状况，他们与微软以及华协（CHIME） 有长期良好的合作关系。如果能募集到20万人民币（包括微软对员工的等额匹配捐款），我们就能为70多个孩子和他们的家庭拥有一所学校的美梦成真。

· 背景动机 我们团队去年去四川旅游的时候，在网上偶然得知当地南充日报对我家乡的一所“夫妻小学”的报道。该山区以务农为主，主要收入来源为外出打工的农民工，人均月收入只有 600元左右。三年以前，很多孩子辍学在家，因为乡中心小学距离太远，低龄儿童无法独立上下学或住校生活。鉴于此，一对夫妻老师建立了这个民办村小，教书育人，这也重新燃起了许多家庭的希望。因经济拮据，他们租用农民房作为两间教室，一间土坯房，一间砖瓦房，房屋破旧，光线昏暗。该村小的运营费用，包括教师工资、蒸饭工人工资和房租等，仅靠幼儿园学生缴纳的学费和国家财政为每个小学生配发一年250元的补贴。由于房租年年上涨，连这样简陋的小学也渐渐难以为继。在探访期间，我们被孩子们的求知渴望和老师的无私奉献所深深感动，详情请参阅我们发在微软亚太研发集团博客上的文章。

请您行动

o 我们春节后会在微软上海的办公楼组织一场项目介绍会，期待您的参加。到时您可以选择现场捐款，或是之后通过银行转帐到我们的专户里面。我们计划在学校的介绍铭牌刻上捐款达到或超过1000元（或200美元）的热心朋友的名字。

o 口口相传：转发这个博客或转讲这个故事给您的家人朋友。

· 问题解答

o 本次募捐仅限于微软技术计算(TC, Technical Computing)部门吗？

§ 不是，这一慈善努力由我们TC部门员工发起，乐于接受所有热心人的捐助。

o 如何确保合理使用我的捐款？

§ 我，魏臻，将作为CTEF的志愿者担任本项目的项目经理，负责跟踪和监控捐款的使用情况。我们找到一位信得过的乡中心小学副校长作为当地联系人，将会详细记录和报告捐款使用情况，并在学校建设的各个阶段发送照片。

o 新学校的所有权归谁？各利益相关方都协调好了吗？

§ 我们已经与村小老师、村委会领导、乡中心小学校长和县教育局官员达成书面协议：新学校归村委会所有，仅限于教育目的。CTEF董事会也同意了我们的项目提议。

o 该小学位置在哪？

§ 四川省南充市营山县合兴乡糖房村大垭口http://cn.bing.com/ditu/?v=2&encType=1&cid=806B47350BB8F7FC!3502.

o 如果这两位老师不能继续上课了怎么办，特别是政府最近在推行“清退民办教师”的政策？

§ 乡中心小学的校长称没有接到任何通知，在当地师资力量有限的情况下清退民办教师不太现实，就算以后清退了，他承诺会安排其他正规教师来这里上课。

o 小学的占地面积和每平方米成本是多少？

§ 占地约400平方米，预算建设成本约500元/平米。由于两个原因成本比预想的略高：1)该址交通不便，从县城开车4小时，还要走30分钟山路，故而运费较高；2)经实地考察拟建校位置，地基需要打得比较深。

o 捐款仅限于二月吗？小学什么时候竣工？

§ 无此限制，二月的捐款将用于修建小学，计划于今年秋季开学前竣工。二月以后的捐款将被用于购买教学用具：桌椅、书籍、乒乓球台等。

o 其他问题或建议？

§ 请Email联系魏臻或George Yan

后续的捐款、进度情况也会及时列出。天寒人心暖，让我们伸出温暖的手，送给四川山区的儿童一份礼物 -- 希望小学。恭祝大家新春快乐！

We, the Microsoft HPC Shanghai team, visited a poor village school in my hometown, Sichuan last year after the major earthquake; we donated over 7K RMB on the spot. We’re hoping that you can join our charity effort – raise 200k RMB (or 30k USD) in this February to build a small school.

· What we want to do  We would like to help build a small elementary school, partnering with China Tomorrow Education Foundation (CTEF, aiming to improve the education in rural China). If we can raise 200k RMB (30k USD) with Microsoft’s match for employee’s donation counted, then we can make the school a dream come true for 70+ students and their families.

· Why we want to help We went to Sichuan for a morale trip and happened to know this “Couple-Run School” from a local newspaper’s report in my hometown. The mountain area has only agriculture as the major industry. While the main incoming comes from migrant labor force working in big cities far away, the average incoming is about 600  RMB (less than 100USD) per month. 3 years ago, many students there discontinued studies because it’s too far away to go to the only one central primary school ran by government. At that time, 2 teachers (husband and wife) founded this small school outside of government education system, to keeping the education for the local children -- the hope for many families. The teacher are running this small school with 250 RMB/year for each elementary school child from country finance and kindergarten students’ tuition fee and need to cover rental. Due to limited income, they are renting 2 terrible-condition classrooms from a peasant and barely able to afford the increasing rental fee. During the trip, we are deeply moved by the children’s hunger for learning and the teachers’ devotion for education. Microsoft China R&D blog has forwarded our trip report.

· What help we need from YOU

o Come to the project introduction meeting in Microsoft Shanghai office after Chinese New Year. Then you can choose to donate on the spot or later, cash or bank account transfer. (More information will be posted here.) We plan to make a plaque listing the donor names above $200 (or 1000 RMB).

o Spread the word: Forward this blog or tell this story to you family and friends.

· FAQ

o Is this donation restricted to the Technical Computing organization, Microsoft?

§ No, we as TC team is initiating this charity effort and appreciate donations from all warm hearted people.

o How do I know the money will be well utilized for the school project?

§ I will be the project manager, as a CTEF volunteer, responsible for tracking donation usage and monitoring the construction periodically. I have identified a vice-principal of the central village school as a worthwhile coordinator, and will report detailed donation usage and send photos for each important construction milestone.

o Who will be the new school owner? Do all stakeholders agree with this plan?

§ We’ve got written agreement from the teachers, village head, central school principals and county education bureau officers:  New school will be founded for education purpose only, and will be owned by village governing committee. The CTEF board has approved our project proposal.

o Where is the project located?

§ Dayakou, Tangfang, Hexing, Yingshan, Sichuan. http://cn.bing.com/ditu/?v=2&encType=1&cid=806B47350BB8F7FC!3502.

o What if the 2 teachers cannot sustain, especially when government pushes the “Forcing unofficial teachers to quit” policy:

§ The central village school principal doesn’t think this can be executed in the coming years, and commits to arrange other teachers there if that happens.

o What’s the school floor area and cost per square meter?

§ It’s about 400 square meters and 500 RMB/square meter. The cost is higher than expected because of 2 reasons: 1)the transportation material transportation fee is high due to terrible traffic and long distance – 4 hours’ drive from county and 30 minutes’ walk from road to the school. 2) It needs deep digging to build a good foundation after experiment.

o Is February a hard stop for donation? When can the school be built up?

§ No, donation in February will be used for school construction. The school is planned to be put to use for next semester(September). So donation after February and before September will be used for buying desks, books, Ping-Pong tables, etc.

o Other questions or suggestions?

§ Just drop Zhen Wei and George Yan an email.

Following donation and progress can be tracked on this blog. Give the gift of education and change someone's life! Wish you a happy New Year!

In November 2008, CTEF sponsored four Stanford University MBA students, Amy Gu, Chen Ou, Andrew Tam, and Rachel Zimet, to visit the Sichuan earthquake site for earthquake relief opportunity research. They visited schools in Deyang, Mianzhu, and Shifang in Sichuan Province and introduced a project to CTEF – sponsoring 150 students who suffered the most from the earthquake through the partnership with China’s Committee for the wellbeing of the Youth (关心下一代工作委员会) in Deyang.

  Stanford students in Sichuan

After months of contract preparation and selection of students, CTEF reached an agreement with Deyang’s Committee for the wellbeing of the Youth and committed to provide RMB 100 per student per month to cover the cost of study and living allowance for 150 students, who were seriously injured or lost their family in the earthquake. 

The first batch of money has been delivered to these 150 students in July 2009. Below are a few thank-you letters from some of them (the student names have been removed to respect their privacy).

Zheng Shan Kou Central School is about 45 miles to the southwest of Sichuan capital, Chengdu. It provides education from the first grade to ninth grade for more than 450 students from 9 villages. Many students walked over 12 miles of hilly road each way to reach school, bringing flash lights and sticks since the sky was dark when they came back to home.

The school buildings were seriously damaged by the earthquake. CTEF has committed over 819,000 RMB (USD $120,000) to improve the dorm, student bathrooms, dining hall, and a playground.

Before:

Under construction:

China Tomorrow Education Foundation (CTEF) partnered with Our Free Sky (OFS, http://www.ourfreesky.org/ ), a non-profit organization in China, and donated thousands of books to two earthquake impacted schools in Pengzhou, Sichuan.

In late June 2008, just six weeks after the 5.12 earthquake, a team of OFS volunteers visited Guangyuan, Mianyan and Pengzhou, three cities in Sichuan that were hit hard by the earthquake (http://www.ourfreesky.org/ofs/projects/512zoufang0806.html ). While temporary classrooms were being built for the local schools, most of them didn’t have libraries for the students. With the common goal of helping the school children in the region who have suffered from the tragedy, OFS and CTEF decided to work together and donate books to these schools. On September 8, 2008, the CTEF board approved the OFS book projects and decided to donate 5420 books, worth of 27,327 RMB (US $4,019), to Pengzhou Guihua School (彭州桂花镇中心小学), and 4213 books, worth of 20,949 RMB (US $3,080), to Pengzhou Hongyan School (彭州红岩镇中心小学), respectively. The books were sent to these two schools by OFS volunteers on October 7, 2008.

“This is only the beginning of our collaboration with OFS. There are many more schools that need our help. We will also try to pair the school children in China with the American students who donated some of the money, and let them build friendship with each other,” said CTEF president Dennis Su.

Books with CTEF and OFS stamps

Books were being sent to schools by OFS volunteers

Pengzhou Guihua School (彭州桂花镇中心小学)

Pengzhou Hongyan School (彭州红岩镇中心小学)