ALTHOUGH he didn't show it, 14-year-old Tang Chi-fai was delighted with the small gift, a picture dictionary. It came from a Hong Kong friend he has never met.
In fact, Chi-fai, from remote Hua Tong village in mountainous northeast Guangdong, wouldn't have been able to go to school had it not been for his sponsor, Lee Mo-kan, a social worker, and the quaintly named Group of Dandelions, a new charity dedicated to helping needy children in China. Ms Lee also sent Chi-fai a cash gift of $500, which was personally delivered to him by a Dandelions member, to cover his books, tuition and boarding fees for the coming school year.
The boy's 45-year-old father, Tang Ah-ching, was blinded in a mine blast five years ago, and the the burden has fallen on his mother, who tills the land, to feed the family of four. It didn't take long for them to find out there wasn't enough money for Chi-fai's fees.
'Even though we are poor, I never thought of not letting my son study. A good education will help his future. He could find work in the city or if he returns to the village he could introduce advanced farm techniques,' she said.
Chi-fai, whom his headmaster describes as an above-average student, enjoys all his subjects at school, including Chinese, mathematics, geography, history, science, art and music.
But he is one of the lucky ones. Hua Tong villagers work mainly in farming or coal mining and, with an average income of just $800 a year, most families are too poor to send their children to school. It is estimated that one million children in China cannot afford education, adding to the 200 million illiterate people in the country.
