The Charity

China's growth over the past thirty years is quite simply unprecedented in history. Since the era of "reform and opening up", ushered in by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China has grown by an average of 9.5% year on year. China is now, in GDP terms, the world's third largest economy, behind only the United States and Japan. Given China's current rate of growth, it is posed to overtake the U.S.A in less than twenty years.

So, then, why on Earth would a Chinese educational charity need our money? The fact is that, although China has experienced astronomical growth over the last forty years, raw GDP figures do not tell the whole story, especially given China's enormous population. According to the International Monetary Fund China's per capita GDP in 2008 was still only $3,315, placing it only one place above Iraq and two places above the Republic of Congo.

If one also takes into account the fact that the vast majority of China's rapid growth has taken place along its far Eastern coastline, concentrated around the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, then one can clearly appreciate that China's interior is still unimagineably poor. There are, therefore, more than 354 million Chinese still earning less than $2 a day, 120 million of which earn less than a $1 a day.

It is true that the Chinese government has taken some limited steps to iron out this vast, and growing, inequality gap. However, it has had little effect. In 2004 China's Gini coefficient (a measure of equality whereby complete equality is measured at 0) stood at 46.9. Putting it on a par with Rwanda, and considerably less equal than Japan at 24.85.

On top of all this, the rural poor in China are also denied many basic rights that those in the cities enjoy. There is no free education and no free healthcare. China's all-pervasive 'hukou' system of household registration also means that the rural poor are prohibited from seeking a better life in the more developed cities. As a result China's rural poor are locked into a cycle of poverty which is harder to break than in many other develping countries.

In this context, therefore, charities that assist in the education of children in these poorer areas are extremely valuable. The charity we are supporting is attached to Peking University and runs two basic services. The first is sponsoring children through school, paying for their tuition fees and basic learning materials. The other is helping to found libraries in schools, thereby providing the whole school with crucial learning materials to which the children otherwise would not have access.

It costs around £500 to found a library at a school, and we would very much like to fund at least a couple. Therefore any donations that you feel you could make to this worthy cause would be very much appreciated. As an added incentive, whichever individual or organisation donates the most money they will get the naming rights to one of the libraries. Donations can be made via our fundraising website:

http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/thruthemiddle

Thank you so much for your support, it really is appreciated!