Chestnut & Herbs nursery at West plain school 西坪小学

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THE XIPING STORY 

by Phelex staff 

I brought the Phelex Foundation's donations to Xiping Elementary School of Langping town, Changyang County, Hubei province for building a planned sustainable production field in order to aid needy children's elementary education in the winter 5 years ago.

The school is located in Xiping village, which is in the depth of the mountain named ‘Ping', actually just a peak full of grotesque rocks with an altitude of 1800 meters, 380 km from Wuhan City . There is no highway from Langping Town to Xiping, one can only arrive at Xiping village by walking more than 15 km along the river road and climbing over 2 mountains.

Xiping, big mountains, small population and barren land, nearly hundred families with a population of 347 live in 11 sq meters of land. Villagers make a living on growing potatoes and tobacco. One third of villagers cannot make production investment, one or two peasants even difficult in buying salt. There is one elementary school in the village, implemented the repeated teaching in grade 1-4. The only teacher of the school, Xiuzhang Xiang has been leading groups of children to pick up edible wild vegetables and herbs for supporting their schooling over the past nine years. Teacher Xiang locked some brief notes as the following in his wood cabinet:

In 1995  Farming tuition aid field list: dribbling black mushroom seeds on 210 trunks and 47 jiao of Tianma (a type of herb 天麻) , picking and transplanting 170 heads of wild Osmunda (薇菜), planting one fen of Codonopsis (党参) and two fen of tea.

In the autumn of 1996, more tuition aid was generated: ￥120 Yuan from black mushroom, ￥690 from Tianma, ￥100 from osmund (Weicai), ￥50 from Dangshen, ￥50 Yuan from tea ￥1010 in total.

In 1997 autumn,  tuition aid was disbursed to the following children: ￥60 each, ￥240 in total including Dandan Han, Kaimei Wang, Donghua Su, Peng Peng; ￥30 each, ￥300 in total including Haitao Tan, Lirong Zhou, Aiqun Yuan, Qingjin Qin, Hongmei Tan, Bing Li, Haiyan Zhang, Wannian Xiang, Daolan Qin and Yunyang Li.

There has never been single one needy child giving up schooling for ten years in this village where the average annual earnings per capita was less than ?400 Yuan. The children who got out of the mountain and went to higher schools would be presented a towel, a water pan, a pair of running shoes and a notebook unexceptionally.

During my trip, Xiping was covered with the snow; villagers, the teacher and pupils earnestly planed their hearten idea “the bank on the mountain, the school under the mountain” by the side of oil lamp and bonfire. They spent few days in drawing a practical and comprehensive scheme and put into practice. The program developed 10-mu wasteland, planted 689 chestnut saplings while 100 jiao of Tianma, dribbled seeding 1000 trunks of black mushroom and opened up one-mu tea garden. The enthusiasm from the tuition aid program was melting the snow in people's hearts. Teacher Xiuzhang Xiang and Shanglian Qin, the village secretary led quietly the villagers and children to launch the creation of “Green Bank”.

Later, my colleague took over the program follow-up and I have never been back to Xiping ever since. We keep in touch with Xiping mainly by 3-month-round mails. With our common efforts the program developed healthily and set up a set of feasible, transparent and open financial systems. In the summer of 2000, teacher Xiuzhang Xiang was invited to be on the Seminar about Rural Community Council tuition Assistance and told the Xiping story to nearly a hundred of rural teachers, community volunteers and local officials from all over the country. Teacher Xiang brought a pile of accounting books recorded carefully and clearly the income and expenses, and the distribution of tuition aid funds of the 1998 program, the 1999 program and the 2000 program.

In 2000 Xiping Elementary School became financially self-sufficient for the first time. The net income of the tuition program reached ?6732 Yuan funding 32 children for their tuition fees of the whole year. All school children went to school for free. The school established its own library for children, changed some desks and purchased 20 pieces of teaching tools.

I received another letter from teacher Xiang dated one month ago. Looking at the wrinkles on the envelope I knew some villager brought this letter out of the village and posted at the town. A piece of cleanness, piles of bonfire and groups of people I recalled again. We deeply keep in mind that they lead a hard and simple life, stay calmness and insistence. It teaches us to be true, modest, self-discipline, and never frivolous and self-renouncing.

山上银行，山下学堂
———记西坪小学项目

湖北省长阳县榔坪镇的西坪小学，是一所复式乡村小学。位于海拔1800米高山上。学区内村民依然处于自给自足的自然经济状态，人均年收入不到500元人民币。

1988年，向秀章老师来到了西坪，克服多重困难带领全校学生采集野菜、药材勤工俭学，资助学生上学。

为了使西坪小学有一个长期收益来源，惠黎基金会捐资，并鼓励当地村民、家长志愿参与，为西坪小学建立起一个可持续发展的生态助学项目：在校舍后山的10亩荒地上，栽种689棵板栗树苗；套种100窖天麻；点种1000桐香菇；开垦一亩茶园。使长、中、短期收益相互衔接。同时，为西坪建立了一套切实可行的管理制度与透明的财务制度，以保证项目按预定的轨道运行。

1998年，创收3,310元。除去再生产费用，学校用1,300元资助贫困学童；1999年秋，项目纯收入已达5,562元，扣除再生产费用，资助全校学童半年学杂费，每人150元。随着板栗挂果，预计2000年后，收益将大幅度提高。西坪小学将实现“山上是银行，山下是学堂”的良性财务管理。今年，基金会还将继续强化对西坪的财务管理培训，为项目的良好运行打下坚实的基础。