This Day, That Year: April 15

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On April 15, 1991, the first primary school of Project Hope was built in Jinzhai county, Anhui province, marking a milestone for the charity.

Since its launch in October 1989 by the China Youth Development Foundation, Project Hope has become one of the country's most successful charities dedicated to helping poor children get an education, as seen in the item from January 24, 1992, in China Daily.

A photo of 8-year-old Su Mingjuan studying in a cold, shabby classroom at Jinzhai Hope Primary School later became a poster for the project.

Last year, Su launched a charity fund to help impoverished high school graduates attend college with 30,000 yuan ($4,467) in seed money from her savings.

Project Hope has made a difference to the lives of millions of students from impoverished families nationwide.

As of the end of 2017, the charity had raised more than 14 billion yuan. The money went to financing the educations of more than 5.7 million students. It also helped build nearly 19,814 primary schools and more than 29,170 reading rooms and libraries nationwide.

Around 107,000 teachers received training from the project. The charity also offers financial assistance to high school and college students.

Thanks in part to Project Hope, the country's primary school dropout rate remains below 1 percent, according to the Ministry of Education.

China introduced nine years of compulsory education in 1986, but extensive poverty at the time meant that an estimated 4 million children a year were quitting before completing primary school. Children in the country receive nine years of compulsory education, normally from age 6 to 15.