Our Mission: We are a volunteer organization working to improve the education and well being of children living in impoverished rural mountain villages of southwestern China. We believe in the power of love to bring about change. We believe that every child has the right to obtain a good education, and we strive to improve education opportunities in these remote and neglected rural areas. Through love and education, we hope to empower local people to improve their livelihoods and their children’s future.

As volunteers working for commonweal, we hope to spread to people around us the idea of making giving love a habit, to tacitly yet effectively help to change the life conditions of those in need. We also wish to help every child to obtain equal opportunity for education and to promote the development of education in western impoverished rural regions of China. Thirdly, we hope to help guiding the locals of those impoverished areas to achieve lives of prosperity and advanced civilization through self-support.

Our Belief: When love becomes a habit, life will be more harmonic and beautiful.

Our Projects: Give a gift of love to help impoverished children receive an education

1) Give A Love Book Donation: We will gather books collected by means of local community donations, and distribute them to selected schools in impoverished western regions or to communities, individuals in special needs, with coordinated arrangements and plans.

2) Give A Love Volunteer Teaching: We will organize long term volunteer teachings in primary and middle schools that need help in impoverished, remote western areas and send our volunteers in relays.

3) Give A Love One On One Help: We will set up one on one help long term relations between children and schools in need and individuals or organizations willing to offer help. We appeal that once paired, in addition to financial aid, the helpers should also provide long term spiritual support (we believe that the latter can be even more important), e.g. via regular mail communications, so that both sides can hold hands and grow together.

4) Mental Health Care for the Underprivileged: We will systematically conduct mental surveys in the schools we work with in Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Hunan provinces over an extended period of time. We will compare the results across years and explore effective methods through practice for intervention of potential mental problems of students and teachers in primary and middle schools in impoverished regions.

Our Goals: For each year, we aim to recruit 5000 more people to join our team to give loves, to collect, distribute 10,000 books and to build about 10 primary school libraries in rural regions. We aim to organize visits to impoverished western areas for 100 people, and to send about 20 volunteers for the long term relay teaching project. We also aim to provide financial aids to about 300 children to help them receive education, and to offer scholarships to about 50 outstanding students.

Our Target Group: School-age children that should be receiving compulsory education in rural, mountain villages in impoverished western regions, as well as village schools and teachers that could not continue teaching activities due to financial difficulties.

Our Target Areas: We will be focusing mainly on impoverished regions in Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Gansu, Shanxi provinces.

Our Members' Ideal Qualities: Lasting enthusiasm, selfless devotion, team spirit, tolerance and compassion.

Our Values: To spread the seeds of love; let love last, let love pass.

Our Slogan: Let love grow one more meter! Give love one more opportunity! Where there is a heart beat, there is a dream! For tomorrow, let us hold hands! Love goes on...

Our Base: http://www.ourfreesky.org/

Current Projects

Our Free Sky (OFS) education commonweal project team is a non-profit volunteer organization initiated by and made up of Chinese volunteers from all parts, all social circles of China and abroad. The Organization uses the website www.ourfreesky.org as a joint platform to launch education commonweal projects and for member communications. Founded in March, 2006, OFS has currently over 10000 members.

Our Free Sky pays close attention to the current situations of basic education in primary and middle schools in impoverished, remote regions of southwest and western parts of China, including Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Gansu, Shanxi provinces, where children losing opportunity to attend school and teachers unable to continue teaching have been a serious problem. Specifically, we carry out commonweal activities to promote basic education in these areas in the following ways.

First, Centers of Give A Love Book Donation. We founded Centers of Give A Love Book Donation mainly to help primary and middle school students living in impoverished rural regions of outhwest and western parts of China, including Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Gansu, Shanxi provinces, as well as underprivileged yet motivated children, disabled children, those who are serving sentences or in drug rehabilitation centers from all over the nation. We gather books collected by means of local community donations, and distribute them to selected schools in impoverished western regions or to communities, individuals in special needs, with coordinated arrangements and plans. The main responsibilities of the book donation team include: to keep contact with volunteers in charge of branch book donation centers in different regions, to register and sort donated books, to arrange time and location for each donation event. It is their obligation to inform the donors the uses and whereabouts of the books and to publish detailed statement following each donation event.

Second, One on One Help. Our OFS volunteers, as messengers of love, should attend to individuals and groups within reach who are in need of help, and send the information to our joint platform to call on corresponding supports from caring people of all social circles based on the specific needs. Once an individual or a group chooses to be paired with a child or a school in need for long term one on one help, we appeal that in addition to financial aid the helpers should also provide long term spiritual support (we believe that the latter can be even more important), e.g. via regular mail communications, so that both sides can hold hands and grow together. The main responsibilities of the one on one help team include: to collect detailed information (family condition, grade, etc.) of the students in need of help through personal visits, to set up a one on one relation between one student and one volunteer willing to offer help, and to publish detailed statements through the course.

Third, Give A Love Volunteer Teaching. Based on collected information, OFS is responsible for strictly selecting and preparing proper volunteers for long term teaching in primary and middle schools with shortage of teachers in impoverished, remote regions. Each volunteer selected should complete the semester(s) and will be sent by OFS in relays. The main objectives of Give A Love Volunteer Teaching are to alleviate the shortage of qualified teachers in the impoverished western regions, to assist local government with compulsory education, and to promote the development of local education cause （remote rural regions in Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Gansu, Shanxi provinces). The main responsibilities of give a love volunteer teaching team include: to provide detailed information about the schools to be assisted, its surrounding local areas, and what to prepare before starting, to recruit volunteers for relay teaching, to provide certain training to new recruits when condition permits, and to work in liaison with schools receiving assistance in the western regions and the OFS volunteers.

Fourth, Mental Health Care. Due to under-developed economy and resource deficit, children in the primary and middle schools in impoverished rural areas are much under-privileged on the grounds of financial support, nutrition condition, and education level compared to their peers in the cities, and may experience more mental pressure. We therefore believe the construction of an effective mental health care system in these regions is even more pressing. In recent years, attentions on the mental health of underprivileged children in impoverished rural regions have grown substantially as various financial aids were offered from all social circles. This project aims to build mental health record archives for primary and middle school students in impoverished rural regions, in order to identify and intervene the vulnerable group early on. We aim to help them establish a more optimistic and positive attitude in school and in life despite of the difficult situations, so that they can avoid any potential future physical and mental health problems that may trouble their learning and behaviors, and can grow up healthily in moral, intellectual, and physical aspects in a harmonic way. We will systematically conduct mental surveys in the schools we work with in Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Hunan provinces over an extended period of time, and will compare the results across years and explore effective methods through practice for intervention of potential mental problems of students and teachers in primary and middle schools in impoverished regions.

Since its foundation, OFS has been dedicated to play a positive role in basic education in impoverished rural areas as a volunteer organization. In the recent six months, through the effort of our volunteers as well as support from the society, OFS has successfully built Give A Love Book Donation Centers in 12 provinces and major cities all over the country, including Beijing, Shanghai, Anhui, Guangdong, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan, Shanxi, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Shandong, Tianjin. Through these book donation centers, our volunteers have collected over 20,000 books including text books and outside readings that are much needed by children in rural regions, and distributed them timely. The schools that received these books include: Jinjie&Danzhen Nursery of Danmai foundation in Xianggelila, Diqing tibetan autonomous prefecture, Yunnan province; The center primary school in Shangjiang, Xianggelila; The center primary school of Baiyi, Xiangcheng, Ganzi tibetan autonomous prefecture, Sichuan province; The center primary school of Dingbo village; Wujiaying primary school, White Stone Groove, Lueyang, Hanzhong, Shanxi province; Ludian middle school, Ludian, Yulong, Lijiang, Yunnan province; Xinzhu primary school; Chufeng primary school; Anle primary school; Ludian primary school; Taiping primary school.

Up till March, 2009, Our Free Sky has set up financial aids for over 1000 school-aged minority children in Yunnan (Xianggelila, Luquan, Yulong), Hunan (Fenghuang,Tongdao), Guizhou (Zhenyuan), Guangxi (Leye, Dahua), Sichuan (Xiangcheng, Mao) provinces that either had dropped out of school or might be forced to do so due to family poverty, most of which through the one on one help program. We have paid over 100 personal visits to local areas for information collection from the schools to receive OFS volunteer teachers, and there have been nearly 100 volunteers who taught schools for six months or a year in Shangjiang Xianggelila, Ludian Yulong, Malutang Luquan, Yunnan province, Machong, Fenghuang, Hunan province, and Luoxi, Leye, Guangxi.

Every volunteer in OFS firmly believes that "plant a seed, reap a harvest", that we will be able to pass the solicitude from the society on to more children in impoverished rural regions. Little chips light great fires. We all OFS volunteers keenly welcome more people with a lofty mind to join our team. For the sake of tomorrow's happiness of the children, for the sake of the impoverished rural fellow countrymen, let us hold hands together, and each contribute our own humble effort!

March, 2009

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