The Shen Lei Project Hope Primary School
September 20th, 2007
‘Hopefully with our help they will be better off with the education rather than without’, said Shen Lei, our newest and most generous benefactor.
Well, we are certain that this will be true for the children who will be attending the Shen Lei Project Hope primary school in Jianming county, Hebei province when the building is completed later this year.
Shen Lei wants CNYTrust to supervise the construction and subsequent management of the new school to be built with his RMB250,000 donation. We are hugely excited to be part of this project, yet we were also curious about what motivates a 25 year old professional working in London to such an admirable act.
When Donna Gao of our Beijing team spoke to him, it was clear that he had been influenced by the philanthropy of his parents from a young age. ‘I was told from a young age that there were people poorer than us’ he confided. His parents, both teachers, began donating money to children in rural China when Shen Lei was ten, and were able to help three children to go to school. From that young age, Shen Lei dreamt of building a school for children like the three his parents helped.
He was able to realise this dream only 15 years later.
The Oxford graduate is realistic about what he wants to achieve. ‘Education should make students better people and hopefully have better lives. I realise not all of them, if many at all, will go to college, but hopefully with our help they will be better off with the education rather than without’, he confided.
Shen Lei’s commitment doesn’t end here: he completed his triathlon on Sunday, August 5th, raising around £2400. The donation will be shared between his new school and CNYTrust’s first school in Da Miao, Hebei province.
We want to thank Shen Lei for his incredible gift to the children of Hebei, and for allowing us to play a part in our shared mission.
To sponsor Shen Lei’s triathlon, please click here.
