One early morning last week, I was woken up by an international phone call from China – my home country. Lin Chi, a former colleague of mine, eagerly asked me as soon as he heard my voice: “Hey Manli, sorry to wake you up, but do you happen to know anyone here in Beijing who might help out the children in Guang’ai School with their heating difficulty? They need warmth!”

At first I did not understand what was happening. But as Lin went on, gradually I learned the whole story.

In early November, the city of Beijing encountered several unexpected heavy snows. These sudden snows, together with a considerable decrease in temperature, caused much inconvenience to the local residents. Typically for some special groups, the snows brought not merely “inconvenience”, but rather “disaster”.

Guang’ai Charity School was unfortunately one of the specials. Founded in 2004 and currently sheltering some 110 homeless children from 5 to 17 years old, the boarding school however had never succeeded in finding a stable source of funding. Everything, from classroom to students’ food and clothing, was donated by random donors. This winter, the school simply failed to find a coal provider in time. Therefore no heat was available for the children during the dreadfully cold days (even if the school managed to build up a boiler space), and many children’s fingers and toes were bitten by the frost in the past two weeks.

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Lin called me for help because he and I used to be regular visitors to the school, and he knew that I cared a lot about the children and once successfully raised some money for them. However this time, I am simply too far away to help out……

I asked Lin, “Doesn’t the Principal have any better ideas than calling individual donors like you and me? Our strength is so limited and we are not sustainable sources for him after all.”

Lin answered, “Yes, he knows very well about that. But he has no other better solutions. – These days, if he wants to call for public attention on TV, newspapers or radio, he has to pay for the access first. However he would have spent the money on coal or food if he had it. Also, he thinks about the Internet. Unfortunately none of his faculty nor himself knows how to establish a website. In fact, the school does not even have a computer. And it is simply out of the question to hire a professional to help them out. So again, we are the only free source he gets. Mr. Shi said he had called every donor on his list, and he pleaded us to spread the words.”

As a former donor and volunteer, I am really sad to learn Guang’ai’s stagnation in networking, i.e. he has to ask for donation in such a way. In 2006, Shi Qinghua, the founder and principal of the Charity School, once successfully caught the attention of local media. Newspapers and magazines made thorough reports on his school as well as his own story. Even I myself was one of the readers who were touched by the reports and then decided to do something for the school. (Shi Qinghua’s wife and son used to be victims of a fire, and the whole family went bankrupt because of the huge medical expenditure. They drifted from one city to another for some time, and were eventually aided by a charity foundation so that they could settle down in Beijing and cure the burn marks. Shi was so thankful that he decided to repay the society by establishing a charity boarding school for homeless children.)

Apparently Shi failed to keep the momentum in media, and faded out of the minds of the public. Once the reports about him and his school were off, he was not able to continue its influence in the Internet.

Yet I have no reason to blame him. As Shi told Lin, “Once I had a sum of money, how could I risk it into investment on website without knowing its effect, while let my children starving?” It is truly a dilemma: it requires money and technology to stay in people’s sights; but when the children faced with more urgent need for necessity for life, exposure to public must give way. However the fading out in turn makes it even more impossible to raise money, not to mention achieving stable sources. Actually this is not only the problem for Guang’ai Charity School, but a common issue for most of private charity schools in China. And this is a problem beyond networking itself, but a balance between the allocation to urgent need and long term development.

In the meantime, the children in Guang’ai School are still out of heat. I do not know how they will survive this winter. I wish more people could pay close attention to this issue, and together work out a plan to help private charity schools in China out of the dilemma.