Ongoing projects
Aid to children of migrant families in Kunming
Project in collaboration with the Yunnan Jiaxin Children Assistance Center.
Introduction
In China, families that move from the poor countryside to the towns are an important recent reality. In Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan province (south-west China), rural migrants are already 1.2 million of the t
otal population of 4.3 million people. These families try to escape the poverty of the countryside by moving to the prosperous towns with the hope of increasing their salaries. However, this never really happens. Migrants are generally young, with a low educational level that limits their job choices. They are often exploited, illegally employed or employed in dangerous jobs, submitted to long work days and suffer discrimination from the town residents. The majority of these families lives in makeshift lodgings without any service or comfort, in absolute poverty. The situation is still more catastrophic concerning the schooling of their children. In order to enter the city schools, the children must obtain the residence certificate (hukou) from the city administration and the family have to prove that it hasn’t violated the politics of family planning, 
which limits the total children number per family (up to two for rural families). Because of these two bureaucratic restrictions only a minority of these children are admitted to the national educational system. In fact, the majority of them has more than three brothers and sisters and lose any right to access public education. For those excluded from the national system, the only possibility of education resides in the private emigrating community schools, which doesn’t ask for any certificate, but have a tuition fee that is prohibitive for most families. Therefore, many of these children are definitively excluded from the educational system. Most of time, these children help the parents in their jobs; like collecting recyclable material from the garbage or making coal bricks in the local factories. If no possibility to be educated is open to them, they will forever lose hope of a better future.
Aim of the project
Our objective is to support the payment of children schooling fees, so that their families can send them to school. Moreover, we examine if the families may partially pay the school fees of their own children. A central reason for this is to make the parents responsible for the future of their own children. 50 Fr. (approximately 41 USD, 31 EUR) are sufficient to support the schooling of a child for a semester.
Project progress report
In a first 
phase (avril 2007), Ombres Chinoises has collected and distributed 3300 RMB. 1535 RMB have been immediately used to allow the schooling of children of migrant families in Kunming. Among the 12 children initially included in this program, 8 have received the subsidies of Ombres Chinoises and they attended the school. Two of the children have moved out of Kunming. Two children categorically refused to go to school and we worked with the Jiaxin center to accommodate for these specific circumstances. The remaining funding guarantees the school courses for these same children during the autumn semester of 2007.
Update (October 2007)
Nine children currently go to school (one child more compared to April 2007). Seven children normally continue go to school during this semester. A child returned to his hometown to work. The two children, who until the end of the last semester refused to go to school, are now two good students. However, the social and financial situation of the families is very precarious. Therefore the schooling of some of these children is uncertain. A symptom of this situation is that four out of eight children were not likely to attain the semester examination because their families have to moved temporarily to their hometown to work, since the revenue of garbage collection in Kunming is not enough to live. In collaboration with Jiaxin, we are considering solutions to these problems, in order to increase children and families’ stability and therefore compliance to school program.
This is the beginning of the concrete aid that Ombres Chinoises is building in this region. Your donation will allow us to support more and more children in the future and to finance continuing humanitarian projects.
PS: Ombres Chinoises maintains full record of the identity of all children supported in this program and monitors the actual use of all funds. For transparency purposes, all details will be presented at the annual members' assembly. However it will also be possible for donors to receive the annual report by E-mail.
