Step 1: Find Project Sites
a. Volunteers visit locations proposed by the government, where they investigate the local resources and existing facilities.

b. The S1 Form is submitted to the government. This is an initial application towards establishing a school, which includes reasons for why a school must be built at a particular site, along with detailed reports of investigation, with photos.

c. The proposal may be recommended by other individuals or organisations.
Note: Schools that have collapsed, or are in imminent danger of collapse, have priority in obtaining funding for re-construction. This is because the students involved are attending lessons in temporary residential buildings.

Step 2: Search for Donors
a. Potential donors are introduce to the present surrounding of the proposed schools through reports, photos, or VCDs.

b. Suggestions are made to potential donors: proposed architectural design, amount of money required, and such like. Donors generally contribute 50 percent to 80 percent of the total amount required, depending on circumstances.

Step 3: Donor Confirmation
a. Donors confirm the amount that they will donate or the donated money has been received by our organization.

b. The S2 Form for school construction is filled out and submitted to the aided school district to confirm the amount of donations and the scale of the construction project.

Step 4: Confirm School District
a. After receiving the S2 Form from the aided school district, our organization gives an intial confirmation of mutual consent, where the local government involved pays the remaining 20 to 50 percent to complete the project.

b. After agreement has been reached with the donors, our organisation sends the S3 Form to the School District, indicating procedural details of founding the school establishment.

Step 5: Founding Ceremony and Official Agreement
a. Donors are welcome to attend the Founding Ceremony in person. If they are unable to attend, volunteers of our organisation will act as their legal representatives.

b. Around the time of the Founding Ceremony, both paying parties sign the official agreement in the S4 Form, detailing the three stages in which the money is to be paid, as well as the legal obligations for inspection and management.

Step 6: The First Stage of Payment
a. The first payment is sent out to help build the assigned school.

b. Our organisation will send out to the aided district both Form S5 and S6. S5 notifies of the first stage of payment and its exact amount. S6 is the official receipt of the said payment, which is filled in and signed by the district authorities and then mailed back to us.

Step 7: The Second Stage of Payment
a. We monitor the aided district through reports and photos, making sure that 60 percent of the school building has been constructed before sending out the second stage of payment.

b. We send out Forms S7 and S8 to the aided district. S7 notifies of the second stage of payment and its exact amount. S8 is the official receipt of the payment, which is filled in and signed by the district authorities and then mailed back to us.

Step 8: The Final Stage of Payment
a. After the construction is finished and we are notified through reports, the school's name is decided upon and the founders' names are inscribed upon a stele. Arrangements are then made for the donors to visit and inspect the new school building as well as attend the Establishment Ceremony. If the donor is satisfied with the current results, we move on to the last stage of payment.

b. Our organisation sends the S9 and S10 forms to the aided district. S9 notifies of the third and last stage of payment. S10 is the official receipt of the payment, which is filled in and signed by the district authorities and mailed back to us.

Step 9: Follow-up
a. Neither our organisation nor the donors will give any more payment to the established school, whatever difficulties it will have to face in running its routine schedule or any other expenses. Our organisation will only try our best to give financial aid to individual students or teachers in particular difficulties.

b. If individual donors so specify, our organisation will follow up on further construction projects in the said school, such as building sports areas, fencing walls, adding desks, and establishing library facilities.

c. In the winter of 2005, we established a special team for follow-up work on the schools. Their chief responsibility is to help improve the quality of teaching by collecting data on the teacher-student ratio, school facilities, library usage, etc.

Introduction - function of the School Tracking Group

The major task of the School Tracking Group is to provide sponsors with updates of a school after being in service for 2 years. This allows sponsors to have better understanding of the quality of education in rural areas and performance of the students. This helps sponsors monitor the safety and condition of the school and assess progress towards our program objectives.

The updates include timely information of the school, photos of the campus and potentially extra assistance needed for further improvement. Such assistance will be provided by the reserve fund¹ of Grace Charity if further sponsor support cannot be obtained. 

The School Tracking Group allocates substantial amount of resources in the early days to establish work flows and systems for monitoring and evaluating the program. Program data and information are collected through survey from the schools on a regular basis. Each school is required to provide such information for our analysis and evaluation.

The School Tracking Group was formed as suggested by Mr. Kan Yiu-kwong. This is in response to enquiries of sponsors who want updates on the schools they helped to build. This coincides with our intention to find out whether aid to students in primary and secondary schools would be needed.  Thus we need data on the general condition of the schools such as:

1. Number of teachers

2. Wages of teachers

3. Number of students

4. Performance of students

5. Condition of the campus (approximately 10 photos provided by the school with cost covered by Grace Charity)

The original student-aid programs for primary and secondary schools were replaced by pursuits of the School Tracking Group in 2005 after the Central Government implemented "two-exemption one-subsidy" policy (to exempt textbook and miscellaneous fees and subsidize boarding cost) in rural areas. The Group gains tremendous support from volunteers and systems have been established to work effectively towards our goal.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you are interested in our work. You are very welcome to join us as volunteers!

e-mail address: grace789@gmail.com

¹ The reserve fund comprises accrual bank interests and gain from RMB currency conversion.  $300,000 has been allocated for this school tracking program.

Work Flow of School Tracking Group

Tracking form A or B will be sent to the school address two years after completion of campus construction. Schools are required to return the form within 60 days.

School Survey Report (SF1) will be complied according to tracking form A or B for understanding overall condition of the school.

Identify strength, weaknesses and areas for improvement of the school after evaluating the survey and photos provided.

Request for further assistance will be considered based on guideline as follow:

Projects with Priority Assistance

1. Libraries

2. Desks and chairs

3. Equipment for teachers

4. Basic teaching equipment

5. Cement playgrounds

6. Water tanks and hygiene facilities

Other Projects
 
1. Subsidy for continued education for teachers

2. Guideline for basic renovation of classrooms during summer

Our letter of intent will be sent to the school after confirmation of Mr. Wai-yin Fung. The school is required to reply before the deadlines. One-time payment will be made upon receipt of photos and report after completion for requests below RMB10,000. Assistance will be sent in two payments for request above RMB10,000.

Letter of undertaking will be sent to school to ensure payments will be made after completion.

Updates will be sent to sponsors including survey reports, tracking and performance measures and ongoing tasks along with latest information of Grace Charity. Tracking information will be sent again after another 2 years.