Days before the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the PLA Navy, the PLA Naval Research Academy in Beijing received navy-themed paintings and short videos from the Navy Hope Primary School in Yinfeng Village, Shiqian County of Guizhou Province, which were gifts made by the pupils of this rural primary school for the celebration of the 73rd birthday of the PLA Navy.
Shiqian County, located in the deep mountains in southwest China, had poor transportation systems which greatly hindered the economic development of the county, and the Yinfeng Village was no exception. Tang Guozheng, a native of Yinfeng Village, has been working as a teacher of the primary school in the village for 36 years. He remembers clearly that before the year of 2001, the school with nearly 200 students only had three classrooms, which were leaking cold air in winter and rainwater in summer. Students had to bring their own desks and chairs to class. It occurred often that three students had to share one table.
In 2001, good news spread to the village. In February of that year, several officers dispatched from a naval unit stationed in Beijing came to the Yinfeng Village Primary School and signed on behalf of the naval unit an assistance agreement with the school. According to the agreement, the naval unit funded the construction of the new classroom building, the playground, and procurement of teaching facilities, and it was in that year that the school was renamed "Navy Hope Primary School in Yinfeng Village". It is one of more than 300 schools aided by the military.
Naval units have kept sowing the seeds of hope in the Navy Hope Primary School in Yinfeng Village for 21 years: the aid was initiated in 2001 by a naval unit; the Naval Research Academy has taken over the responsibility since 2015; in 2016, with the financial assistance from the Naval Research Academy, the school's renovation and expansion project was started, new dining halls, dormitories and bathrooms rose from the ground one after another…
The seeds of hope have borne fruitful results. According to statistics, over the past 21 years, more than 300 graduates of the Navy Hope Primary School in Yinfeng Village have later been admitted from senior high schools in Shiqian County to universities and colleges such as the National University of Defense Technology, Naval University of Engineering, and Guizhou University, gradually becoming pillars of the society.
Ma Guangjie ever studied in the Navy Hope Primary School in Yinfeng Village from 2006 to 2012. Last year, after graduating from Guizhou Industry Polytechnic College, the 21-year-old Ma joined the military and was assigned to a naval unit, becoming the first young man serving in the naval troops from Yinfeng Village.
