Shanghai Pioneers Online "Project Hope"

More than 400 poor school dropouts were able to return to class in the past month, thanks to donations from warmhearted people across the country who learned about the situations of their beneficiaries online.

The activity, known as part of the famous "Project Hope," was jointly launched by Shanghai Charity Foundation and the largest local news web site Eastday.com on July 26. It is part of a series similar online activities launched last year. Previous to that, several other Shanghai-based web sites had participated in the project.

Sources with Eastday. com said they had received a total of RMB420,000 during the last four weeks, mostly from young people who themselves got employed not long ago. For example, a class consisted of 50 middle school students at Hongkou District donated RMB500, which they earned by selling newspapers in the summer holidays, to help a local primary school students. As the money is only enough for one semester's tuition, each of these students has decided to save RMB0.2 yuan every day to help the little boy finish a whole year's study.

With an online payment system designed by ChinaPay.com, donators could immediately send the money to Shanghai Charity Foundation upon sign-up. The whole process takes just several minutes.

Shanghai is the first city in China to use Internet in raising funds for poor school dropouts, according to Chen Tiedi, chairman of Shanghai Charity Foundation. He said this is a good idea as it not only helps more overseas Chinese and foreigners to learn about the "Project Hope," but is also becoming to Shanghai's status as an international metropolis.

People's Daily Online --- http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/