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Children of Ningxia
A project from Enfants du Ningxia in Paris, France
We finance scholarships for students from primary school to university in China's Ningxia province, improve the school environment by providing equipment and raise the teaching level through training programs.
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About this project
L. Mayer from Enfants du Ningxia is responsible for this project
"I want to go to school !" This was the desperate cry of Ma Yan, a 13-year-old girl living in a little village in Ningxia, one of China's most deprived provinces. Her parents, poor farmers raising three children, could no longer pay the tuition for their daughter’s schooling. Her dreams dashed, Ma Yan wrote of her anger in her diary and in a letter addressed to her mother.
In 2001 Pierre Haski, a French journalist based in Beijing, was reporting in Ningxia and stopped in Ma Yan’s village. Ma Yan’s mother saw this foreigner and spontaneously decided to give him her daughter's letter and diary. She herself didn’t know what they contained as she is illiterate. Back in Beijing, Haski had the diaries translated and then published extracts in a newspaper. Donations and offers of help flowed in, allowing Ma Yan to return to school. But what about other girls in Ma Yan’s situation?
Ma Yan’s story is the hidden side of the Chinese economic miracle. While China's East Coast is enjoying dazzling growth, entire swathes of the country hardly benefit, especially the rural regions. In Ningxia, which suffers from chronic drought and is populated by an ethnic minority unconstrained by the one-child rule, little girls of poor farmers are doubly discriminated against. Their gender condemns them to ignorance and sometimes to forced, early marriages. Parents who can afford to send a child to school prefer to send their sons, who represent their future support in a country where retirement pensions don't exist. Girls, educated or not, will bring a dowry paid by the family of the husband, as tradition has it.
The Diary of Ma Yan was published in October 2002 and was a bestseller in France and 19 other countries. Thus our association, Enfants du Ningxia, or Children of Ningxia, was born. At first we were able to help 30 children by providing school scholarships. 100 more followed. Ma Yan passed her university exams in September 2007.
In 2001 Pierre Haski, a French journalist based in Beijing, was reporting in Ningxia and stopped in Ma Yan’s village. Ma Yan’s mother saw this foreigner and spontaneously decided to give him her daughter's letter and diary. She herself didn’t know what they contained as she is illiterate. Back in Beijing, Haski had the diaries translated and then published extracts in a newspaper. Donations and offers of help flowed in, allowing Ma Yan to return to school. But what about other girls in Ma Yan’s situation?
Ma Yan’s story is the hidden side of the Chinese economic miracle. While China's East Coast is enjoying dazzling growth, entire swathes of the country hardly benefit, especially the rural regions. In Ningxia, which suffers from chronic drought and is populated by an ethnic minority unconstrained by the one-child rule, little girls of poor farmers are doubly discriminated against. Their gender condemns them to ignorance and sometimes to forced, early marriages. Parents who can afford to send a child to school prefer to send their sons, who represent their future support in a country where retirement pensions don't exist. Girls, educated or not, will bring a dowry paid by the family of the husband, as tradition has it.
The Diary of Ma Yan was published in October 2002 and was a bestseller in France and 19 other countries. Thus our association, Enfants du Ningxia, or Children of Ningxia, was born. At first we were able to help 30 children by providing school scholarships. 100 more followed. Ma Yan passed her university exams in September 2007.
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