A new charity program has been launched to support poor college
freshmen.
It has been set up by the China Youth Development Foundation,
which has introduced a transparent online platform to reassure
donors that funds are used correctly.
The program Project Hope College Dream has a dedicated website
where donors can choose from a list of poor but intelligent high
school graduates and support them in their first year of
college.
By a few clicks at www.shangdaxuela.cn, which means "going to
college" in Chinese, supporters can check various details, such as
where their money has gone and find out when the student has
received the money.
Potential donors can also visit the foundation's headquarters in
Beijing for more information, said Wang Min, deputy
secretary-general of the organization, at a press conference
yesterday.
To support a poor student through the website, donors need to
pay 4,400 yuan (US$550) to the bank account of the foundation.
As soon as the foundation receives the money, it will transfer
4,000 yuan (US$500) to the assisted student's bank account within
six days. The remaining figure will be used by the foundation to
support its daily operation and project management costs.
Donations less than the total amount will also be accepted and
accumulated with other smaller sums to match one student.
"We hope to help 20,000 poor but excellent students this year to
take the first step into college, because many had given up their
college dream as they had been unable to gather enough money to pay
the first year's tuition fees," said Wang.
Tuition fees are at least 6,000 yuan (US$750) annually. But the
average yearly income of a farmer is only 3,255 yuan (US$407),
according to official statistics. A survey showed nearly 60 percent
of 322 poor students in 11 provinces believed that their families
could not gather enough money to pay for their first year of
study.
Within a week of the launch of the new program, the foundation
has already received 16.59 million yuan (US$2.07 million) from
individuals and enterprises, which can help 3,771 college
freshmen.
(China Daily July 12, 2006)