As 2024 comes to a close – a look back on the Guanlan Scholarship Foundation’s accomplishments

As 2024 Comes to a Close

 As 2024 comes to a close, we would like to take a moment to celebrate the Guanlan Scholarship Foundation accomplishments. Together with you and our partners in China, we reflect on what we have achieved and the impact we continue to make.

This year marks our 24th anniversary. What started in 2000 as a two-person initiative has grown into a global effort. Today, we connect people across communities through Facebook and Instagram.

We now have dozens of young North American and Chinese American volunteers working on four dedicated teams (see page 3 of the 2024 Winter Newsletter on the News & Views page). These volunteers are passionate about giving back and paying it forward. They raise awareness about the challenges faced by girls in remote villages in China.

Our Mission and Ongoing Commitment

Our goal remains focused on helping village girls access education. Through this work, we empower them to lead more fulfilling lives and enable future generations to thrive. We continue this mission while navigating the complex geopolitical challenges of our time.

Thanks to the support of generous people like you in our donor community, the Guanlan Scholarship Foundation accomplishments continue to grow. Through people-to-people work, we help drive educational progress, bridge borders, and create opportunities for peace and well-being across the globe.

Highlights From This Year

Families prioritized providing the best education for their daughters. With our support, they successfully enrolled them in better schools in nearby county capitals, often at great personal expense.

Key accomplishments include:

• 150 Guanlan Sisters have received our help since 2000.
• Over 25 years, 29 Guanlan Sisters have been admitted to college, representing 21% of the entire group.
• Between 2015 and 2020, 100% of secondary school graduates were admitted to colleges or post-secondary schools, including community colleges.
• About 15 volunteers helped spread awareness through social media and the website.
• Another 5 volunteers translated annual letters from the Guanlan Sisters.
• Administrative assistants Li Yu and Naya continued to play a key role in supporting office operations and our partnership with Shaanxi.
• 10 volunteer data analysts transformed annual report notes into numerical data, enabling advanced analyses, including inferential statistics.

  Research, Outreach, and Community Engagement

This year, we published a new and improved website

and an article “Advances in Village Girls Education: Revealing Social Change in China” in the respected Chinese Education and Society Journal, and

• • In addition, we held an Guanlan Sisters artwork at a nearby church.helping raise awareness and community support.
    
    

    Changing Realities in Rural and Urban China

Time moves on and their lives are changing along with the massive urbanization drives in China. So many rural villages have emptied out to move to nearby towns and small cities to find work, live in better housing, get access to safer water, more reliable electricity, and internet access.

Our partner in the area wrote this in September 2024:

“Most of the children are living in urban villages in or near the county seat, following their parents who have moved there for work, where they are attending schools. Due to the influx of migrants in the county seat, it has become more difficult now for students to enroll in public primary school. Parents need to provide a lot of documentation for “migrant students” in advance, seek connections, or even pay extra fees to secure enrollment. Some children have to  attend private migrant primary schools with an annual tuition of about 6,000 yuan (US$1,000), while public schools are tuition-free.”

How You Can Help

Your donation through PayPal or and volunteer help are needed as much as ever.

A child is shaped by the world around her, by the care and love she experiences. Our Guanlan Sisters are so thankful for your caring – from so far away – that gives them the hope and confidence to move forward, to learn, and give back as they can.

We join them in being thankful for your generosity, your big heart, your willingness to share your fortune and love.