What We Do

Extended Project

Tongwei Health Education (extended project) July 2009 - July 2012

A 3-year project starting from July 2009, the project is to promote healthcare awareness and deliver basic healthcare knowledge to the school students and the local community in Tongwei County, Gansu through Tongwei public and school library system supported by Evergreen. Also based on the local needs, EEF worked with local authority to build a local school clinic, and sponsor annual physical examination for students conducted by the school clinic and the County Epidemic Prevention Station.

By June 2010, the books and periodicals on healthcare we purchased for Tongwei No. 1 High School Library and Tongwei Public Library have been in circulation in both central library and satellite libraries. The school clinic at Tongwei No. 1 High School has been basically equipped and in good operation. Also together with the County Epidemic Prevention Station it has completed the 2009 health examination for students, and built a health record for each student. Tongwei No. 1 High School Library compiled and printed "Healthcare Brochure for High School Students", conducted the trial for healthcare education class, also organized the students to make "Healthcare Hand-written Newspaper" by searching healthcare information via Internet and library. Tongwei Public Library has compiled and printed "Healthcare Digest" bimonthly and distributed it to patrons and community members, also hosted "Healthcare Seminars" in which video seminars were played for patrons and community members.

TianZhu ICT Training (extended project) May 2009 - May 2012

This project is a 3-year project starting from May 2009. Tianzhu No. 1 High School Evergreen Central Library collaborated with 6 school libraries on 5 agricultural sites to provide training on information self-aid to the local farmers, i.e. how to acquire information needed by daily life and livelihood from the Internet, e.g. on agricultural technology, marketing, policy and regulations, healthcare. As an extended project of EEF, this project is meant to explore an effective model of performing ICT（Information and Communication Technologies）education in the rural areas, in order to be replicated to other service areas of EEF or beyond.

The project service team includes: computer teachers of Tianzhu No. 1 High School as seed trainers, who trained other trainers, and went to the extension sites for extensive training; computer teachers of the 6 schools and core members of the farmer students as local trainers, who provided training to the farmers whenever the latter have spare time; the volunteer group from the Department of Information Management, Lanzhou University who helped manage the online forum which served as a vehicle to reflect the training status, facilitate exchange between the students, and assess the outcome; the volunteer group consisting of library professionals in Shanxi, who designed assessment scheme for the project; EEF project management staff responsible for coordinating the efforts of training group, assessment group and online forum group.

The project team produced the teaching materials and adjusted the training model based on the needs of the students and constraints of the reality. By June 2010, through the exploration of Phase I of this project, the project team has formed a training model featured with 1) train the local trainers, and use trainings provided by local trainers as important component; 2) teach students according to their aptitude, encourage students to help and learn from each other. As a result, part of the students now can search information of interest such as plastic shed farming, the cultivation of hongti grape, disease prevention for pig farming, etc., and can share the information at the online forum. Moving forward, the project will focus on expanding the trainee base and/or extending the training depth, also the systematic assessment of the project impact.

Here is the list of the 6 school libraries and their corresponding agricultural sites:

Extension school library	Corresponding Agricultural Site
Tiantang Nine-year School, Kela Elementary School	Tiantang Village Government Loan Biogas Project Park
Shimen Elementary School	Shimen Village Green Vegetable Model Project Park
Huazangsi Middle School	Huazangsi Chakouyi Village Highland Agricultural Technology Park
Hongda Elementary School	Hongda Village Land-exchange Poverty-alleviation Project Park
Songshan Middle School	Songshan Town Highland Shelter-feeding Breed Improvement Project Park

TianZhu oral history project (extended project) May 2009 - May 2012

This project is a 3-year project starting from May 2009. To cultivate historical sense and research capability of students, as well as preserve and promote local culture, TianZhu No. 1 High School teachers and students, with the guidance from experts, study the oral history methodology, and design/implement a project to collect oral history and folk culture, form a digital archive, and display and promote the collection through media and on Web. The school will also develop a inter-disciplinary (history, literature) school-based curriculum "Oral History and Folk Culture" based on this project.

By June 2010, 15 students and 5 teachers have participated in Phase I of this project, and completed 7 interviews and related organization and archiving of text digest, audio, and video. The interviewees include the Minority Tu History scholar, traditional art AnZhao artist, and Thang-ka artist, etc. The training and interview practices arouse the interests of teachers and students towards oral history, help establish the complete working process, and help the project team receive many positive feedbacks from the scholars and folk artists. Moving forward, the project team will extend the depth and breadth of the project, including guiding the students to 1）improve interview skills and depth; 2）develop derivative works and learn to analyze causal relationships between historical facts and interpret history; 3) actively participate in selecting topics。The project team will also publicize the project via local museum, festivals, exhibitions, media, and Evergreen conference and website.