Since summer 2009, HELP’s volunteers have made several field trips to Weimin Elementary School (location A in the map below). Weimin Elementary School is located in mountains at elevations of 1800 m, with 7 teachers and 305 Yi ethnic minority students from four remote villages in Qiaodi Township, Xichang, Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture, Sichuan. 

In this economically unde-developed area, the local Yi comminites lived in remote villages far away from the Qiaodi township.  The school attendance rate is lower than the province average.  Weimin School hosts the K-3 grades kids in the four villages of Masang, Shuitang, Qiaodi, and Gaodi that are too young to go to the Qiaodi Township Central School.  Since three quarters of the students live outside the Masang village, where this school is, the school operates in a monthly base instead of weekly.  The students take an 8-day break at the end of  each month and about 70% of them live in school during school days. 

 
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The first issue that we got to know of was that in the Weimin School most kids were from poor families and usually don’t have winter clothes. Some of them wear broken shoes or walk on bare feet to school from several miles away, even in winter time.  HELP decided to donate a set of winter clothes and shoes to each student in the school.  HELP's Wolong volunteer Ms. Wang Yongyue worked together with the school teacher Mr. Ma Lianping since early Oct. and had the clothese and shoes delivered to the school on Oct. 13th.