BUILDING VALUES IN BACKWATER SCHOOLS--ONE NGO'S APPROACH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 SHANGHAI 000586 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 9/10/2057 TAGS: PINR PGOV KIRF CH SUBJECT: BUILDING VALUES IN BACKWATER SCHOOLS--ONE NGO'S APPROACH SHANGHAI 00000586 001.2 OF 004 CLASSIFIED BY: Christopher Beede, Pol/Econ Section Chief, U.S. Consulate, Shanghai, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) Summary: The Changjiang Civilian Education Foundation (CCEF) is a homegrown NGO that is trying to build values and teach self-sufficiency to poor students in backwater towns in Anhui Province. CCEF runs two schools aimed at poor deserving students. The first is an elementary school and the second is a vocational carpentry school for high-school aged children. The schools provide not only scholastic or skills education, but also teach students morals, ethics, and self-sufficiency. CCEF was created by Chinese entrepreneur Sage Nie (Shengzhe). Nie is responsible for the vast majority of the foundation's funding and is President of Tecsun, a Suzhou-based construction company that hires many of the vocational school's graduates. Nie, an avowed Christian who built a chapel for workers at Tecsun headquarters, does not shy away from introducing Christian ideas to the students. Local authorities cooperate with the schools and the program has become so popular that local governments in other impoverished areas have urged CCEF to set up schools in their towns. End summary. ¶2. (U) On July 24, Poloff accompanied a team from CCEF, led by the foundation's Deputy Secretary Echo Yu (Meng) to CCEF's two schools in rural Anhui near the tourist area of Huangshan (Yellow Mountain): the Tecsun Xiuning Pingmin Primary School; and the Tecsun Luban (Xiuning) Technical School of Carpentry, named after the mythical Chinese carpenter Lu Ban. Despite their relative proximately to Huangshan, the schools were located in areas and served families from places where tourist revenues have not managed to trickle down. ¶3. (U) CCEF is an NGO established and funded primarily by wealthy entrepreneur Sage Nie (Shengzhe),Managing Director of Tecsun (Suzhou) Homes, a construction company that builds modular wood-frame homes based on U.S. design. According to CCEF literature, the foundation was approved by the Jiangsu Civil Affairs Office in 2005 and has as its goal providing quality holistic education to students from "poor but diligent and honest families." Despite the fact that the foundation does all of its work in Anhui Province's Huangshan municipality--Nie's hometown--it is registered with the Jiangsu provincial government; Nie and his company reside in Suzhou, also in the more affluent Jiangsu Province. -------------- Educating Complete Citizens, not Just Workers -------------- ¶4. (U) The elementary school is located in Landu Village and currently has about 100 students and five teachers. The school is only entering its third year of operation and had not yet turned out any graduates. The carpentry school was established in 2003 and taught 15 and 16 year old young men--no girls allowed--traditional carpentry techniques using traditional tools. The walls at both schools were covered with quotations from Nie exhorting students to wash their dishes and their hands and reminding them that diligent carpenters are just as good as average professors. The first item of business for incoming students to either school was a two day course on the basics of hygiene and self sufficiency--how to bathe, how to use toilet paper, how to wash dishes and hands, how to clean up after a meal, etc. ¶5. (C) Yu said that these basic skills were often lacking due to several factors. First, children in the countryside were no longer being raised by their parents--the vast majority of whom had left for work in the cities--leaving children with grandparents who were more inclined to spoil than to discipline. Second, China's "One Child Policy" had led to the "little emperor" syndrome, where children were not expected to lift a finger for their own subsistence. Third, twenty-five years of reforms had trained a generation to worship money, while there was a simultaneous break down in the public social safety net. Parents (or guardians) insisted that children do nothing but study so they can get good jobs, make a lot of money, and support them in their old age. Fourth, there was a general lack of religion or belief systems to guide people. Yu said that the Cultural Revolution had done much to destroy the vestiges of religion and traditional social mores and fostered an attitude of looking out solely for oneself. Yu said it was not uncommon, for instance, to hear parents point to people who tried to wait their turn in line and say to their children: "Look at that fool waiting in line! He will never get to the front. Don't be like that!" ¶6. (C) Nie and CCEF viewed moral and social education as SHANGHAI 00000586 002.2 OF 004 equally important to academic and skills-based training. Students were taught early on that manual labor was honorable. At the elementary school, for instance, the children had a garden where they learned to grow vegetables that were used to supplement their diet. Nie, an avowed Christian, was only too happy to encourage Christian values through the foundation. Students learned that they were part of a larger picture, inseparable from the rest of humanity. They were also taught a sense of gratitude and interdependence. For instance, the lyrics of a song which every student of the carpentry school memorized read: "We thank our God for his love. We thank our parents for our lives. We thank our company for our occupations. We thank our classmates for their concern for us." -------------- Filling a Critical Need in the Countryside -------------- ¶7. (C) CCEF selected students on a needs basis. Yu said that despite government promises of free education in the countryside under the "New Socialist Countryside" program, it still cost upwards of 4,000 RMB per year per child for public education, including tuition, fees, books, and room and board. Yu said she had no idea where funds from the central government that were supposed to subsidize education went; she only knew that they were not making it to the schools and the students. She estimated that it would be 20-30 years before any real progress along the lines of free government-provided public education was really implemented. According to CCEF literature, the foundation is the first of its kind to support public education in low-income rural areas. ¶8. (C) Students who were selected for CCEF schools received completely free education, including room and board. Potential students were nominated by the Xiuning County government who received recommendations from local governments under its jurisdiction. Nominees were supposed to meet certain criteria for family income but local government officials often nominated their own children or those of their cronies. To ensure that the program was used to benefit only the deserving, CCEF sent out teams of teachers and school administrators to visit the homes of every candidate and gain a first-hand understanding of the families' economic situations. Poverty alone was not enough of a reason to gain admission to CCEF schools, however. Families were also evaluated as to the reasons for their poverty and their attitudes toward work. If the parents or grandparents were seen as lazy or indolent the students were rejected on the grounds that they had already been predisposed from a young age towards sloth and would not be able to adapt to the school's expectations of industry and labor. ¶9. (C) Currently, CCEF only operated the two schools, although other localities throughout China were trying to encourage it to expand its operations. Yu said that Nie was reluctant to increase the number of schools too quickly, fearing a loss of control over the curriculum and a loss of the vision he had created. He preferred to build the schools up slowly, one at a time, with a focus on each individual child. Once the pattern was mature, Yu said, they would open more elementary schools. A local government in Yan'an and another place in Shanxi Province had already offered up prime campus locations in an attempt to woo CCEF. -------------- "Where the Chickens Don't Defecate" -------------- ¶10. (U) During his visit, Poloff had the opportunity to accompany a team of CCEF interviewers on a visit in two remote mountain villages to conduct home assessment interviews. Poloff was the first foreigner ever to travel to the villages. The team drove first to Baiji Township, a small settlement with a few farms, a hospital, and a government office building over an hour's drive away from Huangshan municipality along a newly paved, single lane, winding road. The group did not pass a single vehicle on the way to Baiji. From there, the team hiked three miles through the mountains to the small village of Yanchi. Yanchi was home to about 50 families and had a population of about 200 people and an average monthly income of 1,000 RMB (approximately USD 131) for families where the parents were working outside the village. For families who could not find outside employment, the monthly income was significantly lower. Bamboo and tea were the main cash crops. Corn was also raised in abundance, but much of it went to feed pigs; traditional smoked hams were one of the few value-added specialties produced in the area. ¶11. (U) The group first visited the Wang family, who could trace their roots in Yanchi back at least 300 years to the Ming Dynasty. The father worked in Hangzhou doing odd jobs as a SHANGHAI 00000586 003.2 OF 004 construction worker and sent back about 10,000 RMB per year. The family earned an additional 200 RMB from tea and another 800 RMB from bamboo. The couple had three children, two of whom were in school. Since the grandparents were all deceased, the wife stayed at home with the children. The middle child, a five year old boy, had recently returned from Hangzhou with his father where he had been attending kindergarten. Their oldest daughter was already in high school. After interviewing the family, CCEF team recommended that the son be accepted for enrollment in the primary school. ¶12. (SBU) The second family recommended by the county government appeared to be better off than the Wangs. The house was somewhat nicer, and the wife was evasive about answering questions about the family income, simply stating that "it's the same as everyone else." After some digging, it finally came out that this was the family of the village head and the team rejected the family's application for their son. ¶13. (U) From Yanchi, the group climbed another two miles through the mountains to reach the small village of Xiangshan. The village was home to about 100 families and a population of roughly 300-400 people. As in Yanchi and other remote villages, the vast majority of working-age able-bodied men and women had fled the villages for work in nearby urban centers. Average annual income was roughly the same as in Yanchi. ¶14. (U) In Xiangshan, the team visited the Xiang family. The grandparents were raising their grandson while the child's parents worked elsewhere. The grandfather had recently had an operation on his head that he said had drained the entire financial resources of his family. He complained that his son and daughter-in-law sent back some money every month for their child, but nothing for him and his aging wife; a situation he blamed on his daughter-in-law. Xiang said that he was able to make about 1,000 RMB per year selling tea but that he relied primarily on subsistence agriculture. The team decided that it would need to conduct more interviews before reaching a decision. ¶15. (U) Yu later explained that people who went to the cities often found that the higher cost of living consumed the bulk of their correspondingly higher incomes. If they were lucky enough to find good paying jobs, they would usually try to send money back, but only if their salaries would permit it. Also, agricultural opportunities in Xiangshan and Yanchi were not always equitable, Yu said. Some families had significant land holdings plentiful with bamboo. These families could earn upwards of 10,000 RMB per year from selling bamboo, while others did not have any bamboo holdings. ¶16. (U) Yu said that these villages were probably remote by design. She explained that it was not uncommon during periods of upheaval in Chinese history--such as dynastic changes--for people to flee major population centers and head for the hills; perhaps fleeing and hiding from the invading armies, or forced into the hills due to natural disasters, or, perhaps, because they were running from the law. In any event, it was certain that invading armies or court investigators would have had a difficult time seeking out these tiny villages secreted away in the vast stretches of rugged mountainous terrain. -------------- Tecsun: Treat People as People -------------- ¶17. (U) On August 7, Poloff visited Yu at Tecsun's headquarters compound in the Suzhou Industrial Zone to examine the corporate side of the education initiative. Yu, who also works for Tecsun, said that the schools shared both a strategic vision and a symbiotic relationship with Nie's company. Although Tecsun technically did not provide funding for the schools--most funding came from Nie himself through his foundation--Tecsun hired all of the carpentry school graduates. According to Yu, the long-range strategy was to have the male students from the elementary school who did not test into high school enter the carpentry school, from whence they would move into the company. While students were free to choose their employment, thus far, all of the 99 graduates to date had opted for employment with Tecsun. ¶18. (U) Yu said Nie himself came from a rags-to-riches background. Growing up poor in a small mountain village in Huangshan, he worked his way through school, eventually receiving advanced training in the United States. Nie believed in the value of hard work and was committed to giving people who demonstrated they deserved it the opportunity to pull themselves up by their own boot straps. ¶19. (U) Nie's personal philosophy was: "Treat people like humans. Making a profit is important, but not as important as SHANGHAI 00000586 004.2 OF 004 changing lives." That philosophy translated into a corporate vision that was much the same as his vision for schools: train people to act like civilized human beings, instill in them a system of values, and help them find dignity in their occupation. Like the students in Huangshan, Tecsun workers also took a basic two-day hygiene and self-sufficiency course. Everyone then worked as a janitor for two months--scrubbing toilets, sweeping floors, etc.--regardless of what position for which they were hired. ¶20. (U) Yu said that Tecsun made it a point to train workers to live with dignity. In addition to their competitive salaries, Tecsun offered a range of benefits. According to Yu, a major benefit--and one not to be viewed lightly--was that Tecsun provided real toilet paper. Most construction workers lived in squalor, sleeping on the ground at the construction site, using pages from books or whatever they could find for toilet paper. Yu said that whenever Tecsun began a new housing project, the first thing it would do was build a temporary dormitory for the laborers, complete with bathrooms, beds, and dining facilities. The company had initially provided free meals, but had recently begun charging workers 3-4 RMB (USD 0.40-0.53) per day in an effort to combat waste. ¶21. (U) Occasionally, employees left Tecsun for companies offering higher wages. However, according to Yu, within a year, they always came back, begging for their old jobs. Yu explained that the company would usually take them back, but would make them wait before allowing them to return, assign them lower-level jobs, and let them know that they had made a mistake in leaving, in an effort to "teach them a lesson." ¶22. (U) Because it expended so much effort on behalf of its employees, Tecsun was careful in the employees it hired and placed a great deal of trust in them. New employees were traditionally found through referrals from existing employees. After a year on the job, an employee could refer their friends or relatives. Yu said that unfortunately, most of the referrals tended to be in their 30s or 40s and were set in their ways, and found it difficult to adapt to the company's philosophy. Yu said that Nie's vision for the carpentry school had dovetailed nicely with his company's need for quality and qualified employees. Nie was able to mold workers while still in their teens through the school, providing him with a workforce that was already accustomed to Tecsun's requirements of honesty, integrity, hard work, and trust. -------------- Religion a Key Component -------------- ¶22. (C) As part of his commitment to moral education and to his religious beliefs, Nie had also built a small chapel on the compound. Workers were encouraged--but not required--to attend Bible study. New converts were sent to a local Protestant church for baptism. Initially, Nie had invited a local pastor from an underground church to hold Sunday services. However, someone tipped-off the Suzhou Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) in early 2007 that Tecsun was running an illegal church. Although the RAB did not visit in person, RAB officials passed word to Nie that they were displeased. In an effort to avoid a confrontation, Nie shut down the Sunday services and implemented a Thursday Bible study group instead. The small chapel was capable of handling approximately 40 parishioners, although Yu said only about 10-20 participated each week. -------------- Comment: A Growing Need for NGOs? -------------- ¶23. (C) From a positive angle, unlike many NGOs that focus on alleviating the immediate symptoms of poverty, CCEF has taken the unique approach of trying to cauterize the wound at the source through providing not just skills, but values and morals that will have ripple effects across Chinese society. However, the situation on the ground also highlights the shortcomings of the New Socialist Countryside program and the relative impotence of the Central Government. Despite promises of free education, the Central Government has thus far been unable to turn its decrees into action at the local level, at least in places that are off the beaten path--the very places the New Socialist Countryside is attempting to assist. Unless the situation changes, as time goes on, the Central Government will likely need NGOs such as CCEF to help in providing basic services to the people. JARRETT