Library

An Ideal Library

The masterpieces are old friends who walk beside us, sometimes figureheads, headlights illuminating our path, sometimes consoling memories or warm smile.Those in my pantheon draw a certain idea of man and literature, whose primary purpose is to be shared.

I made ​​a promise here, a user who asked me a few tips to engage in the reading of so-called "classics", books that make up a universal heritage and we offer both shared all the sensitivity of men and the whole weight of the human condition.

The game will therefore, from time to time, add a book to our library great .With each note, each participant in this blog will provide a commentary on his composition, in a note on a book of their choice (one because of too many observations would be lost in limbo your contributions to the internet). A work ranked among the "classics" of literature. This is not to conquer but pedantry to give readers the desire to immerse themselves in a book they know only the name and reputation.

You can of course produce other contributions, comments to the notes of others, but always in a courteous tone, and no, I beg you, these marks of contempt which discourage contributors to continue this game .

10 years 10 stories

CTEF has a long tradition to closely monitor the school renovation project and visit the schools we have built in various developing stages. Wawisiu Law is one of our founding partners and longtime volunteer that leads our operation in China. In 2002, Waisiu and her daughter visited several schools in Qinghai and Yunnan within two weeks. Some of the schools had received funding from CTEF in the last two years, while others are potential recipients. They visited schools to confirm the schools constructions were in proper order and made sure the fund were used without discrepancy. They also brought the students some stationary and clothes donated by CTEF and other NGOs. More importantly they found many practical and important needs from students. For example, for many students in Ledu school, there was no heating stove at all in school dormitory. They also noticed that many students have no access to other books other than the minimum text book. These practical findings helped to inspire many new CTEF projects. Their work has brought major change to the schools and motivated many more volunteers to get involved, either by providing financial aid or provide local material and labor. Our local volunteer Yuan Zhanhai told us about Dennis’s recent one day trip in 2010 to visit Guizhou school and students. It is one typical CTEF school visit but special in a way. It is typical because the school is located in faraway rural area and it takes a long time and many different commuting tools just to get there-- long distance bus, local “taxi”, motorcycle or even ox-wagon. This time it took Dennis and his wife 5-6 hours just to reach the school and as usual they have to walk a long way on the muddy mountain road. It is different this time because Dennis and his wife had to visit several families after completing school activity at 9:00pm. The night in the mountain is chilly and dark. The road is narrow and steep with mountain on one side and cliff on the other. Without any flashlight, they have to “feel” the way slowly and crawl on the steep and narrow mountain road. They made it to the sponsored families after an hour to distribute scholarship and talk to the parents about students’ study progress. Zhanhai was deeply impressed by Dennis’s dedication and leadership. His respect ion to Dennis turned him into one of our longtime partner at local school.

Although CTEF is a Seattle based non-profit organization and most of volunteers are based in US, a significant part of our operation is in China, and we are counting on our hard working China local volunteers and many other NGO partners. We sincerely appreciate our local volunteers' work. Many of our projects are labor intensive, from "5.12 pen-pal project", to the 1+1 Student Sponsorship program and recently the Teacher Award program.  Each stage in these projects requires our volunteer to send out initial survey form, contact every individual involved to explain and follow up. Our volunteer, Fang Fang, called each of the 150 students for 5.12 pen-pal project alone. Our volunteer then has to coordinated collection all the data. The 1+1 program is even more demanding with hundreds of students and matching up them with donors in the program. It is hard to realize a small step in such a project can mean so much work. We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude. Thank you, Fang Fang and many other local volunteers that help us to this date!

China Healthcare And Education

A couple years ago, I was on a panel at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Business that was asked what we saw as the best opportunities for foreign businesses involved with China. We all agreed on the following five, in no particular order: Healthcare  Education Cleantech/Greentech Food Software/High Tech Nothing shocking or earth shattering, obviously, but as time has gone on I have become even more convinced these are the top five. Last month I gave out this same top five list while interviewed on public radio and my interviewer expressed a bit of surprise at education.