From rural area to urban area, from being assist to giving assist, growing up step by step. When she recalls her poverty-striken background, she does not blame anyone but also feeling grateful. She was nearly deprived of education because of poverty in her family when she was a junior high school student. Luckily, she finally finished the university course by using the grant to paid the tuition fee. After graduation, she work in Beijin for many years. she already can speak a Beijin local accents. It is difficult for us to imagine that she is a girl coming from rural area. She leave impoverished mountain communities, doing the speech in different stages, training personnel. All of her success is relying on her great deal of coviction.

Although the environment around her is changed, her heart is never be changed.
 

"Few men, drinking at a rivulet, stopped to consider its source."

That is why she has chosen to dedicate her life to the improvement in rural area.

Growing up in Hunan Xiangxi, Shi QunLian had a simple childhood. “The people in the village are very sincere. The outside world may think that we are not rich, but everyone is content with happiness”. Although they are happy from deep, it is also true that the economic status of her family is very poor and the heavy cost of education of three child made it even worse. In order to pay the education fee, the family even did try to sell the two valuable cattles but gave up at last as they could not bear. As a result, they always submit the fee late as it is hard for them to collect the enough amount. Shi said that it was horrible when the class teacher calling out those students who did not pay yet since she was always on the list and this also lowered her self-esteem as others could pay but she.

Because of how difficult it is to receive education, Shi realised how important studying is. One of the motto of her father is that, “the rural children could only change their destiny by studying, moving away from rural.” There is no difference in terms of smartness when comparing the children in rural and city but resources. Shi was lucky, different from usual patriarchy rural family, Shi’s parents and grandpa really support her to study and insist to let every children went to school although her grandma thought that Shi should let her brothers had the chance as she is a girl. Shi’s grandpa did not read words but know how to recite some of the ancient literature and uses them during casual talking. Shi was affected by her grandpa and really enjoy studying, even chose literature as her major in University.

Poverty is the biggest obstacle for studying, apart from tuition fee, food was also a problem. "I brought a can of marinated chili with me to school every week and had it with rice, certainly not enough nutrition." Fortunately, Shi was able to promote to secondary 3 under the hardship, moreover she met the donors from IRD who care about the development in Xiangxi and received the subsidies from them. This opportunity was also a turning point of her life, especially the magical moment for Shi when the donors tried to persuade her to continuous her study in high school. When Shi completed her junior secondary programme, she decided to go to vocational school as she could not go to the key high school. However, the decision also meant that Shi gave up the chance to go to the university. At that time, the founders of IRD were visiting Xiangxi and knew about the decision and thought it is a pity to give up. Although they were leaving, they tried to reach Shi and dramatically Shi arrived in the airport an hour before the departure. In the airport, the donators persuaded Shi to study in high school and even further in university and promised to subsidize her study. Shi could so carry on her university dream.

The expectation of donators then became the force to push Shi. Shi admitted that 3 years of High school school time was the hardest period in her study. Firstly, she burdened her horizon and realised that the world is so big that there were many people who were better than her. Secondly, language barrier was also a problem for her, in Xiangxi, Shi learnt in Miao language and it was hard for her to learn in Putonghua in High school. However, language did not stop Shi, instead Shi pay much more effort to overcome it. "There was no electricity in my home but I got a kerosene lamp from one of the donor, I used it when I read after woke up at 4 or 5 everyday." The kerosene lamp accompanied Shi for the 3 years hard time. 

Shi successfully entered Hunan Normal University, studying Chinese literature, because of the effort paid. Shi firstly worked for a Hong Kong educational company as a chinese editor in Shenzhen, then in the Beijing office of a foundation and finally she joint CCFA in Beijing two years ago. CCFA is a charity organization which focused on rural development. Shi grew up under the care of charity and developed a caring spirit gradually and with the rural background, Shi felt really comfortable working in CCFA. Shi said “ I grew up in rural village and now serving rural, I am a child who can never leave the rural.”

Shi thought that there is still much development potential in Chinese Rural, “there are many things that can be done but they do not know how to do so, as a result they are frustrated and some of them chose to work in the city and stay there.” Shi wish to make a difference in rural development, the final goal of Shi is to let the rural develops by themselves and the children in rural can know about the world outside of rural. As the training director of CCFA, Shi hopes to let the villagers know more about the world, what they can do and the value of them by training. To Shi, her job is to help others to improve their mind by introducing new thinking and theory which is really meaningful. Especially for conservative rural society, new idea is very important for further development and improvement. As a beneficiary of bursary scheme, Shi had her own understanding of bursary scheme. Instead of traditional subsidies, Shi thought that giving support in thinking or idea is much more important. Furthermore, it is better to help the family instead of just the children, for example giving out start-up funds for family start-ups and so they can make a living. Integrated development in rural area should be the main focus, in order to solve the rural problems completely.

Talking about the difficulties and pressure faced in work, Shi thought that the most difficult part is to let the people from rural areas fully understand and used the theory that they have learnt. Therefore, apart from training, CCFA also provide a series of support, include organizational support, capacity, development planning, project funding, resources. Shi said that she was an idealist with the passion on rural development, she enjoyed the job in CCFA very much instead of job in big enterprise and being a civil servant. To Shi, the satisfaction in spiritual aspect is really important and we can feel the passion of  Shi to her job from the conversation.

Shi understand that it is never a easy job to improve the situation of rural but she will not stop her move because of it. “Changing the environment or atmosphere of a country is never a job for an hero but a pioneer who starts and leads a group of people to make changes and I wish to be a pioneer.” Shi will not alone in making improvement, there are lots of fellow people like IRD. Although the effort seems small and the problem could not be solved completely at the moment, changes were made in rural life and people’s mind and became part of the improvement.

Shi was inspired by the donors and determined to be one of them, working in charity, as she said “I wish to be like them in charity, caring the minority and poor, helping them and making positive influence to their life.” In addition, Shi and her donors are still friends so many years after her study.