High school education may be something most people take for granted, but not for young women living in poor, ethnic minority villages across Guangxi whose roles in society are often considered secondary. Teenage girls who live in remote villages dotted across the mountains of the autonomous region often get married instead of being sent to school, belonging to communities where limited family resources are funnelled into sons' education rather than that of daughters. "These girls are really hardworking, but they don't have a culture of going to school - let alone high school," said engineer Albert Ho Ngai-leung, chairperson of charity Sowers Action, which provides education for minority girls in Guangxi. Rural villages that are home to minority groups such as the Miao and the Yi, who celebrate different festivals and follow different traditions to the Han Chinese, do not provide very many opportunities for girls besides family life and factory work. Rice and sweetcorn grown in fields surrounding their small, sparse homes form their daily diet. Once a year or so a pig or chicken is killed as a special treat for the family. "Minority communities live by themselves up in the hills, and they stick with each other," said Ho, describing the self-sustaining culture of these communities that live off what they produce. Seeing the world beyond their villages and mingling with communities different to their own are rare events for these girls, said Ho, who first wanted to reach out to rural ethnic minority Chinese after visiting areas affected by the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. Previous recipients of education from the charity have gone on to study overseas, in places as far flung as Costa Rica, Norway and the United States. Sowers Action is a beneficiary of Operation Santa Claus, the annual charity fundraiser jointly held by the South China Morning Post and RTHK. Money raised for the charity - which is run by a team of volunteers - will put 154 ethnic minority grade 11 and 12 girls through a year at Sowers Action Huaguang Girls' Senior Secondary School in Nanning . The charity hopes the girls' school - which emphasises character development, self-reliance and self-confidence, alongside more traditional subjects - can serve as a model for other charities and the government. "These courses are not just based on traditional Chinese education - there is an emphasis on interpersonal relations in the curriculum," said chief executive Brianna Hui Bun-bun, who hails from a village in Fujian , from where she emigrated to Hong Kong as a child. "This education can help them mix more with society."