The "rich" wild fruit lunch of the children in the mountain. The Cipo Ridge Primary School in Wawu Township was luckily to become the third free-lunch school in Henan Province. The first national "Yifu" campus love house settled in this school.
Reported by reporter Zhu Changzhen with text and pictures
Core tip: Initiated by our newspaper, the free lunch project in Henan has added new members. The Cipo Ridge Primary School in Wawu Township, Lushan County, Pingdingshan City, was luckily to become the third free-lunch school in Henan Province. 170 children in the mountain would no longer go hungry at noon. Yesterday, the first national "Yifu" campus love house also settled in this school. The children not only happily welcomed 20 sets of new desks but also received new clothes and new schoolbags from loving people.
1 Reporters personally visited and experienced the difficulties of the children's schooling
Cipo Ridge Primary School located deep in Funiu Mountain is under the jurisdiction of Wawu Township in Lushan County. It is nearly 70 kilometers away from the county town and nearly 10 kilometers away from the township government. This is a typical primary school in the mountain area covered by green trees. In front of the school gate, there is a clear brook and behind the yard, there is a high mountain called Niuxin Mountain which belongs to the central area of 800 miles of Funiu Mountain.
Principal Zhang Baoshan told reporters that he had been guarding this mountain area primary school for eight years. During these eight years, the most headache-inducing big thing was the children's lunch. "Children's home farthest away from the school is about seven kilometers. In winter, snow blocks the mountain, and in summer, heavy rain causes floods. Every time when bad weather occurs, the hearts of teachers and parents are all tightly strung. One year in summer, floods occurred and two parents and one child fell into a deep pool at the place of Fairy Bridge... three people died..."
On the morning of October 3, I accompanied Principal Zhang Baoshan to visit Zhang Hongmei's home where she is a fourth-grade student. Twelve-year-old Zhang Hongmei lives in Moshang Group, Taiping Village. Riding a motorcycle from the gate of Cipo Ridge Primary School, after traveling about three kilometers of gravel road, it arrives at Taiping Village. Upward from here, it is a goat path, even bicycles are hard to pass through.
The small road winds upward along a brook. On both sides of the road, there are full of weeds and thorny bushes. When climbing up, it is often necessary to pull the thorny bushes on the roadside. When going down, it is necessary to squat down and slowly move down bit by bit with both feet.
Zhang Hongmei's home is located at the highest peak of Moshang Group, about seven kilometers away from the school. It takes her about three hours to walk one way. Her father Zhang Xihai helplessly said, "The child has to get up at four o'clock in the morning every day. She dares not walk alone in the deep mountains and old forests, so she often has to go together with several students. We several parents take turns to pick up and drop off the children. Each time, we have to send them across the deep pool where people were drowned."
Zhang Hongmei, who was writing homework while crouching on a stone, shyly raised her head and said when she saw someone come, "There are three of us from our village studying at Cipo Ridge Primary School. We often rush to school early in the morning, carrying preserved vegetables and steamed breads. At noon, we usually eat steamed bread with preserved vegetables at school. In the evening, we often arrive home almost unable to see the road."
It was introduced that there were six households and twenty people in Moshang Group, among whom five students needed to endure hardships to go to Cipo Ridge Primary School like Zhang Hongmei.
Zhang Baoshan also told reporters that apart from Moshang Group, students from groups such as Yangtianchi lived farther away from the school, some nearly ten kilometers. Among the 170 students in the school, those who did not eat lunch were everywhere. A nine-year-old boy named Tian Xinglong was now in the third grade. However, his father suffered from mental illness and his mother worked outside. He not only did not eat lunch, but breakfast and dinner mostly relied on eating persimmons and wild fruits picked in the mountain to relieve hunger.
2 Volunteers helped apply for free lunch
The difficulties of the children's schooling at Cipo Ridge Primary School moved the Beijing volunteers who came to shoot documentaries. They not only filmed Zhang Hongmei's experience of crossing mountains and rivers back and forth and took it back to Beijing, but also filmed the documentary of Tian Xinglong's family whose three dilapidated tile houses were in danger and his father with abnormal mental state.
The volunteers voluntarily helped Cipo Ridge Primary School establish a microblog and updated it in time every day by phone, which ultimately promoted the free lunch project of the school.
The first batch of funds has already arrived, starting from October, each student in the school will try to eat an egg every day.
Xiao Longjun, deputy director of the Project Management Department of the China Welfare Education Foundation, said in an interview with our newspaper yesterday that before applying for the project, it was necessary to first trial run the egg project for two months. First, it was necessary to test the transparency of these schools, second, it was necessary to test the sense of responsibility of the teachers in the school. Of course, more importantly, it was necessary to adjust, allowing these schools to gradually adapt to various processes of the free lunch project.
Xiao Longjun also told reporters that currently, the free lunch project has opened 30 schools in Henan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, and Tibet, and more than 100 schools are applying. The free-lunch schools initiated by our newspaper previously included Tongshuzhuang Primary School and Shangsi Primary School. With the addition of the newly joined Cipo Ridge Primary School, it has increased to three.
3 Cipo Ridge Primary School welcomes the first national Yifu Love House
The other day, this reporter posted the photos taken during the National Day holiday at Cipo Ridge Primary School in Lushan County, showing the children eating pickles for a week, on his own microblog, which caused resonance among many netizens.
Netizen "Rolling Flood" said, "I still remember vividly my junior high school boarding days when we also used large glass bottles of malt essence filled with pickles, eating for a whole week, and changing taste when returning home on weekends."
Netizen "Hushang Laiai" sighed, "Being able to endure hardship at such a young age is capital for her future strong life. I hope that good-hearted people in society can help these suffering children more."
Netizen "Song Chenxi" said, "Reporter Zhu, please let me know next time you go there. I have many National Geographic and basketball magazines here that I want you to bring over for them to read."
At around 11 o'clock in the morning yesterday, another big event happened at Cipo Ridge Primary School: After understanding the tough situation of the children at Cipo Ridge Primary School through this reporter, President Zhou Junfan and Director Zhai Tiejun of the Pingxiangshan Volunteer Association, General Manager Shao Guoshun of the Hong Kong Shaw Indoor Air Purification Co., Ltd., former chairman of the Political Consultative Conference of Pingxiangshan City Zhao Yuting, and some volunteers personally delivered 20 sets of desks and chairs and loving materials to Cipo Ridge Primary School, built the first domestic "Yifu" campus love house in the school, and equipped it with learning, living supplies, and clothing, etc.
Seeing the muddy campus roads of Cipo Ridge Primary School, General Manager Shao said that the next step would be to repair the campus roads, making the schooling road for children in the mountain area easier and easier.