∷ Beijing Yifang Foundation → Education [Research] → 2015
• Scientific Study for Bedtime Story Project for Rural Boarding Schools
Partner Organization: Growing Home
Project Duration: Jun 2015 - Dec 2017
Project Status: Completed
The bedtime story project for rural boarding schools in China was an initiative started by Growing Home in 2013. The team believed that by reading a story before bedtime every night, it would help the students in the boarding school feel less homesick and lonely, ultimately improving the student’s mental and physical state before going to bed. The success of the project was due to its easy implementation and obvious positive effects on the students. However, despite benefiting more than 90,000 students, the reach of the project was restricted due to the lack of scientific evidence and effective evaluation methods which limited support from the central and provincial education departments.
Nevertheless, the Growing Home team worked with the China Institute for Education Finance Research at Peking University and several provincial education departments to launch a 2.5-year scientific evaluation and study of the project across 80-90 schools. Through this study, the bedtime story project hoped to win the support of the provincial and central education department’s support in order to achieve widespread adoption in boarding schools for benefit of their students’ mental and physical well-being. The Beijing Yifang Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Macao Tong Chai Charity Association, Porticus Asia jointly funded the study.