Gansu Shin Shin Schools

Gansu is located in the northwest of China. It lies between Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, and the Huangtu Plateaus, bordering Mongolia to the north and Xinjiang to the west. The Yellow River gets most of its water from Gansu province. The province contains the geographical center of China. Part of the Gobi Desert is located in Gansu. Most of the population, 73%, is still rural.

Gansu is 92% Han and also has Hui, Tibetan, Dongxiang, Tu, Manchu, Uyghur, Yugur, Bonan, Mongolian, Salar, and Kazakh minorities. It has a large concentration of Hui Chinese. Situated along the Silk Road, Gansu used to be an economically important province and a cultural transmission path as well. Temples and Buddhist grottoes such as those at Mogao Caves ("Caves of the Thousand Buddhas") and Maijishan Caves contain artistically and historically revealing murals. During 2003-2004, Shin Shin Foundation funded ten school renovation projects along the western part of Gansu.

In 2005- 2006, Shin Shin allocated more funds to help renovate 14 school projects, primarily in the Hui minority LinXia County. In addition to the renovation funding, 92% of the schools completed by 2006 received the computer lab award package to enhance teaching and learning activities. This year, the YongDeng Shin Shin school received the satellite library program award to install a library management system, connecting the Evergreen Foundation centralized library to the neighboring TienZhu middle school. Shin Shin's effort is like seeding the desert, it gives the children in Gansu hope to revive the culturally rich silk road history, and advances them to the next century.