In China’s vast rural areas, women’s level of education is generally lower than men’s, setting them at a disadvantage both in the family and society. We are concerned about the education conditions of those women living in the poverty-stricken countryside. We hope to provide them with opportunities of receiving re-education and training. We want to improve the rural women’s capability of self-development so as to enable them to enjoy self-empowerment and sustainable development.

In 2006, cooperating with the Cultural Development Center for Rural Women (CDCFR), and under the auspices of the local education sector and the Women’s Federation, we carried out women’s educational training in Gansu, Ningxia, Guizhou, and other areas. Our activities included training literacy teachers, writing literacy textbooks, the syllabus and giving women’s literacy classes which included teaching of 500 basic Chinese characters, simple arithmetic and basic common livelihood and legal knowledge.

In order to ensure our women’s literacy work is practical, useful and of great teaching quality, in June 2007, we went to Weizhou town in Tongxin County, Ningxia province with a volunteer team made up of teachers and students from Beijing University and Ningxia Academy of Social Sciences, and did a survey on the education needs of local women.

Based on findings from the research, we revised the materials for the new term of literacy class started in late October 2007 in Ningxia and Guizhou. About 60 women attended the class. In that class we offered three courses, namely, literacy class, arithmetic class and daily life class. Daily life class was newly added and in that class, the protection of women’s rights, primary knowledge of women and children’s hygiene, and some skills for the rural life was taught in a more systematic way. The content was simple but practical and therefore, widely popular among the women.

In March 2008, the new learners finished their courses and took their examination. We kept close records of our teaching progress and student's feedback. The materials collected from training class will be used to perfect teachers’ books and the syllabus so as to guide the literacy class teaching in a practical way.