Issues

Through a connection of mom's, I met up with someone who knows about local NGOs today. He told me about the NGOs operating in the area.

The most interesting one is a co-op they run, with around 200 people. They all hand in a small fee, and when anyone need financial help, eg. medical bills, the co-ops lends them money and asks them to pay it back in 6 months. When someone's house burns down for instance, all members of the co-op will go help rebuild the house, any member who doesn't show up will be charged a small fee.

Not too many people struggle to survive he said, but no main problem is education. Like all kids from farming families, parents don't want them to go to school and lose a labourer. More well-off families will rather pay the few hundred yuan of fine to keep their kids away from school. They also see how University students return and are not able to find good jobs, despite how much money their family spent on them. And by the time they return, their physical ability has declined and cannot be able labourers.

I wonder: will a different school cycle (say school only in Oct-Feb when there's no work in the farms anyway) help? And a school/ programmes targeted to the needs of farm people? Like a course in Agriculture etc. Does anyone know of good examples else where?

Will meet up with the owner of an orphanage tomorrow. Yay Babies!