206/566 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, 3004Free Lunch for children
1、Background of Free Lunch
In February 2011, a survey on Nutritious Condition of Chinese Students in Under-developed Areas, published by China Development Research Foundation affiliated to State Council Development Research Center of China, revealed that children in poverty-stricken middle and western China suffer serious malnutrition. 12% of the surveyed students suffer developmental retardation and 72% feel hungry during the breaks; the weight of male and female boarders is 10 kg and 7 kg lower respectively than the average of Chinese Rural Students and the height difference is 11 cm and 9 cm.
As the survey indicated, the poverty suffered by Chinese children will result in huge human resources loses in the future and cause inter-generational poverty relay. It advised the Chinese government to take childhood nutritious intervention as its fundamental responsibility and the ruling party and the state as a whole should make it a political pledge.
On April 2, together with more than 500 journalists and dozens of mainstay domestic media, Deng Fei initiated the Free Lunch Found-raising Plan jointly with China Social Welfare Foundation, advocating that everyone donates 3 Yuan each day for the lunch of poor-off students in China. From April of 2011 to July 2015, the total donation exceeded 149 million Yuan and the number of Free Lunch schools reached 454, keeping children from hunger and enabling them to enjoy hot Free Lunch at school. Free Lunch directly gave impetus to the implementation of Rural Compulsory Education Nutrition Improvement Program initiated by the State Council, improving the overall health condition of Chinese rural children as a whole.
2、 Objective of Free Lunch Foundation
Our mission help prevent Chinese children from hunger and enjoy a healthy childhood
Our vision through years of effort, to make Free Lunch part of basic welfare of Chinese children
Our strategy carry on Free Lunch in a safe, efficient and duplicable manner, adhere to open and transparent principles, provide professional service for donators such as government agencies, companies, welfare organizations or individuals and keep pushing forward the public policy-making process
To assure the proper use of donations, volunteers helped relevant schools open their Weibo on the internet and renewed their book-keeping on a daily basis while welcoming the auditing team at any time. At the same time, Free Lunch invited the local government, media, NGO, parents, pervasive netizens and travelers to take part in the supervision.
Why ACEF was established
Charity, the act of giving, is a part of everyday lives for many Australians. This is also true of many new and old Chinese migrants who have now called Australia home. In January 2014, AUSTRALIAN CHINA EDUCATION FOUNDATION (ACEF) was established as a not-for-profit organisation.
ACEF’s motto is “Education — A Journey Starts with Love”.
ACEF aims to:
1) provide direct financial assistance to children in poverty-stricken areas of China in completing their education up to year 12 through one-to-one sponsorship
2) promote educational capacity building in these areas through activities such as building classrooms and providing library resources.
ACEF is governed by an executive committee, comprised of President Karen Wang, vice-president Yan Chen, Fei Shan Wang, Yong Fu Wang, Jiu Liu, Michelle Zheng, Dan Han. There are currently two honorary members who are Taojin NIE – the founder and the past president, and Mrs Barbara Ding.
ACEF raises funds for designated projects. The Executive Committee is responsible for making strategic decisions on what charitable projects to develop, and for selecting, monitoring and assessing the programs. ACEF does not engage in ad hoc fund raising activities that are not related to a pre-defined project.
ACEF conducts its activities in an open and transparent manner. All the donations will be directly collected and distributed for the designated purposes approved by the Committee, for children, teachers and schools in poverty-stricken areas of China. The costs of ACEF’s business activities including administration, marketing, transportation and accommodation will be covered by our membership fees and collected separately in a transparent manner. On the 8th of June 2014, ACEF was successfully endorsed as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR).
Three projects totalling $245375 donations raised
ACEF has since developed three designated sponsorship programs.
The first, ‘One-to-One Child Sponsorship, Xiushui, Jiangxi’ was initiated in May 2015. This program operates on the basis of ‘one dollar a day, for 365 dollars a year’ and will sponsor a child up to 18 years old or when the child completes schooling. Over the last three years until March 2016, ACEF has raised a total of A$ 148,920 and provided direct financial support for more than 130 sponsored children. In addition, in July 2015, ACEF, through collaboration with Beijing Normal University, organised six teachers to provide short-term support to these schools and students in Xiushui.
Since March 2015, ACEF’s second program has been to rally fund-raising support for the Leukaemia Foundation through participating in the “the World Greatest Shave”, with FCG Property Group. Together our efforts raised A$ 40,614, which placed us as the top fund raiser in Victoria and the sixth across Australia for this valuable course. This has made a significant impression on the wider Australian community.
ACEF’s third program commenced in August 2015, and aimed to provide nutritional meals for school kids in poverty-stricken areas. This was achieved through collaboration with the Free Lunch China — a well-established non-government charity in China. We successfully raised a net total of A$ 51728 for this purpose. Since November 2015, through careful selection of schools in consultation with Free Lunch China, ACEF has endorsed that the Dong Gou primary school, Long Tan village in Wu Shan County of TianShui City in Gansu Province will be the designated school that receives our donation under the auspices of ‘Free Lunch China’. The project expenditure will be published through its website for this school in a transparent way for public scrutiny.