The recipients of the established fund will be third year students of Guixi Junior High School of Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County located in Sichuan, China. The students are the equivalent of American 8th graders, approximately 13 years old. The school has six grade-three classes, with each class comprising 33 students for a total of roughly 198 students total.
Ninety-nine percent of the students at Guixi Junior High School are of the Qiang ethnic group. China has roughly 50 registered minority groups including Tibetans and Mongolians. Closely related to the Tibetans, the Qiang ethnic group numbers roughly 300,000 and is located primarily throughout western Sichuan. Traditionally shepherds, the Qiang live throughout the area in tiny, rural villages often located in the mountainous areas of the Sichuan landscape.
According to our contacts in Mianyang, the Qiang students attending Guixi Junior High School often come from rural, agrarian-based households with little extra money. The impact of the earthquake on this area and the Qiang minority as a whole has been enormous. What little money many families had for schooling and education will likely now be funneled into simply rebuilding homes and businesses destroyed in the quake, not to mention addressing the needs and implications of losing so many family and community members.
For more information about the Qiang Ethnic Group and how the earthquake has affected the people, see the following links:
http://www.paulnoll.com/China/Minorities/min-Qiang.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90832139
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-qiang21-2008may21,0,5261400.story
http://www.chinadiscover.net/china-tour/sichuanguide/sichuan-taoping.htm
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