Why education

We had seen that students in mainland China, despite having a real thirst for knowledge, were not able to attend school because of their families’ inability to bear the costs.  The founding volunteers of our organization took on a mission to nourish the young, established Sowers Action and dedicated its effort to provide assistance and improve access to education in mainland China.  In 1993, Sowers Action learned that a child fell to his death from the second floor of a broken-down wood-frame school building.  Soon after, these volunteers started to plan and implement school construction projects, and later expanded into other programs related to the running of schools.

Improving education is a long-term commitment that requires much planning, involving more than just having a physical school, teachers and students.  As a result, Sowers Action took on a next step in 1999 to develop other enhancement projects, including training for teachers and special needs education fill the void.

In 2013, to address the urgent needs to provide care for orphans and children living in poverty, we launched a Children Home program and opened our first home in Yunnan.  In these children homes, we adopt a whole-person education philosophy in their upbringing.  In addition to providing for their basic needs, we pay special attention to developing their ethics and manners, sense of societal belonging, and physical and intellectual growth.  In doing so, we want to make sure that they have good personal values and conducts, as well as practical skills to be able to integrate into and contribute to society.  For children with special needs, our children homes have dedicated staff to give rehabilitation and mental health guidance to assist them.

On the early days of international program development, what we witnessed in Laos and Northern Thailand far exceeded what we had expected. In some provinces, natural disaster, historic causes and local conflicts have ravaged many communities destroying and displacing countless families, homelessness is common. Those who survived lost their land and livelihood, some migrate or live under the roofs of relatives who themselves are also poor; others build shelters using scrap metals, bricks or thatch and canvas or bamboo as walls to weather the elements; some move to refugee camps relying on relief aids to survive. Their future look grim and hopeless. Under such circumstances, even if we were to improve children’s education opportunities and conditions, no child can properly learn without sufficient food or a roof over his head.

As a result, Sowers Action launch a “comprehensive assistance” program that includes infrastructure building, education and child welfare, and other projects that benefit the community (without limitations on age group or program type). However, in balancing our efforts, we aim to give priority on projects that focus on education and child welfare, this emphasis falls in line with our founding vision to “transform baggage attributed to human population into human capital and resources” through education. This does not, however, preclude Sowers Action in participating in poverty alleviation projects, especially when such program will simultaneously and ultimately help to improve education, our most concerned causes.