Rural Impact Professionals

Have you heard of the term left-behind children 留守儿童? They are a core focus of our work.

This Economist article gives an in-depth report on the problems around this big topic of the 70 millions left-behind children in China.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21674712-children-bear-disproportionate-share-hidden-cost-chinas-growth-little-match-children

Little match children TOWARDS the end of “Jude the Obscure”, Thomas Hardy’s final novel, comes one of the most harrowing scenes in English literature. Jude, an itinerant labourer...

Dandelion Program (蒲公英计划) is an initiative on the Rice Donate (米公益) app-based charity platform. It is aimed at promoting charitable acts by college students and grassroot social organizations.

Under the program, volunteer groups from different regions of China are invited to design and propose charity activities of their choice. Their submissions will go through a selection process involving Rice Donate core users and management. Once selected, the programs are launched on to the Rice Donate app for crowd voting. If they get the required votes of support (in the form of Rice donated by the app users), the program will be funded and carried out by the originating parties. Progress reports and ex*****on results will be published on the app.

Since early 2015, Ripro has funded over 150 projects under the Dandelion Program. They cover a wide variety of topics (child, elderly, preservation, animal, disabled, medical ...) taking place all around China.

The partnership with Rice Donate is our new attempt to innovate the way charity is done through the use of internet and mobile devices. We want to make charity more fun, more open to public participation, and more appealing to the young generation.

Rice Donate is a mobile app created by two Chinese fellows in their 20's. For download, go to their official website: www.ricedonate.com, or search for 米公益 in the iOS or Android app stores.

The new 乐兴 and 保平 libraries completed and put to regular use.

In the reconstruction of the 3 library + multi-function activity corners in 周河、乐兴、and 保平, ARDY organized the students in the schools to take an active part in the process.

Students moved the books in, categorized them, put barcodes on the back, scanned them into the library system, and placed them on shelves.

Voluntary student librarians were recruited and trained for the ongoing management of the library, under supervision of the ARDY staff. They help organize the book shelves when they have breaks during the school day.

Everybody has their own self-made book card. Borrowing and return of books are on self-service.

The original 乐兴 and 保平 school libraries, before the revitalization program.

One has many books, good shelves and furniture, but no usage.

The other has usage, but is very worn out, smelling of mold, and has narrow space.

Eye-sight test and spectacles for left-behind children, sponsored by Bank of America

Student home visits

The success of the pilot library corner + multi-function activity room in 周河 School led to speedy replication of the idea in two more local schools, namely the 乐兴 and 保平 school. All three library corners are sponsored by the Bank of America. Beneficiaries are the left-behind-children in our Student Aid Program and their fellow schoolmates.

All parts of the program sponsored by Bank of America were promoted on the Rice Donate mobile app. The 乐兴 and 保平 library sub-projects received 4821 and 11255 votes of public support on the Rice Donate app respectively.

About Rice Donate: http://www.ricedonate.com/

Interest groups in the 2015 Yilong Summer Camp.

Students under our sponsorship have been through a very happening 2015 summer in Yilong.

In this year’s summer camp, students made their own choices on which interest groups to join, after some scheduled academic classes. At the end of 3 weeks, each interest group presented what they learned in the grand closing ceremony of the camp.

Altogether 188 students, of which 92 sponsored by Ripro, participated in the summer programs. Two university volunteer teams from within the Sichuan Province, namely 西华师范大学 (10 people) and 成都外国语学院 (12 people), joined force with the Yilong local community volunteers to run the programs under the organization of ARDY.

University volunteers and the local Yilong volunteer team also took time to do home visits on the program students.

From this very well documented video clip on Youku, you can share the joy of our children:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTMwODA4MDQ2MA==.html

v.youku.com

In our recent site visit to Yilong County, Sichuan Province, a team of 4 members from Ripro conducted a review on the loan portfolio and microfinance process of ARDY.

The audit is made possible because of process improvements and control steps we put in place throughout the past few years. The loan process now has an audit trail that can be independently reviewed by 3rd parties. Process integrity is the baseline of internal risk control.

At the end of the review, we shared our findings and suggested actions with the ARDY management. Further risk control measures were agreed upon.

Riding on the risk advisory project completed last year, Ripro undertook a follow-on advisory project for Fuping Microfinance, one of the largest rural microfinance providers in China.

A division under the Leping Foundation, Fuping Microfinance runs two licensed micro-credit companies (MCC’s) in Yongji County in Shanxi and Dayi County in Sichuan respectively. Established with a social mission, the MCC’s operate as social enterprises and have a clear focus to service the rural sector.

The scope of the 2015 project include the design of client data collection tools to be used in the loan origination process, risk reporting templates, and some associated risk training to the staff force.