When Liu Jianhua was laid off from his job at a state-run factory, he used free Internet services offered by the Danfeng High School library to research sheep farming. He now has a thriving business and wants to share some of his profits with the school to help expand its computer lab. “The computer changed my life in a way that I never could have seen. Now I share my experience with my neighbors and tell them to go use the computer because it’s so powerful,” he says.
Like most citizens in rural western China, Liu did not have access to computers or the Internet. That changed when the China Evergreen Rural Library Service Center installed computers and Internet connections in the local public high school library, making them available to Danfeng residents free of charge.
Reaching Remote Populations
Evergreen was founded three years ago with the goal of providing free access to information technology to people in remote western China, which has some of the highest rates of poverty in the world. The organization works with public high schools to expand their libraries to serve the broader public—helping them to develop and computerize their library collections, set up computer labs, and deliver training workshops on information literacy and library usage to students, teachers, librarians, and the public. Without Evergreen, rural citizens would not have access to information technology.
In its three years of operation, and with just four full-time staff, Evergreen has experienced tremendous success:
- Six schools have computerized their libraries, with at least one server, two to four workstations, a printer, bar-code scanners, and software.
- Eight schools have increased their book collections by a total of more than 20,000 volumes.
- Three sets of training workshops have been completed with excellent results.
- A scholarship program has been established that funds more than 100 students to attend schools under the guidance of a mentor.
- Libraries serve a combined student population of 12,400 and a combined community population of well over 1 million.
Hope for a New Generation
Beyond the statistics, Evergreen has had a profound impact on the communities that it serves. Thirty-year-old Zhong Hexin was trained by Evergreen to be a librarian. “Learning the computer helps me keep people better informed,” he says. “Without the computers, we would not be able to keep track of current developments in the world or even in education because we are so isolated.”
Fifteen-year-old Wei Ning comes to the library because he loves to read Mark Twain stories in English. “I want to improve my English and I also love adventure stories, so that’s why I like Mark Twain so much,” he says. Wei’s parents, who were laid off from the local state enterprise, approve. “With education, now we have hope for the new generation and for the local economy,” says Wei’s father.
Yang Xueyun, a biology professor at the TongWei High School, bought some agricultural books for the library when he saw that laid-off workers needed to learn new skills. “Through the library’s resources, we’ve started growing new kinds of mushrooms for medicinal purposes and have created a whole new industry here,” he says. Some workers’ incomes have improved by as much as 500 yuan (U.S.$60) per month.
Thirty-five-year-old Wang Yinfang says, “I’ve lived here all my life and could only imagine what the world looked like. But now I can see things for myself on the computer. My children are definitely going to lead a better life.”