This year in March, ourstationery program has started as usual. The annual stationery aid is a very important project for DENER. Before school starts in fall, stationery will be given to children in Taiwan and in remote mountains abroad.

We hope that the children whoreceive the stationery from DENER will also feel the full love from all our donors. This year marks the ninth year of the stationary program. As in the previous years, it is carried out separately in various places.  Our team in Shanghai is responsible raising the funding for schools in China; while in Taiwan, we are responsible for schools in Taiwan and overseas such as Nepal, Bhutan and India.

Every year we spend a lot of thought on the design and selection of stationery.

It is our hope that students will feel our utmost sincerity when they receive the stationery. This year we also had colorful mechanical pencils that kids would like. Some schools have expressed the needs for some Chinese dictionaries as it would be very helpful for the children to learn. Hence, we added a new edition of the dictionary to our stationary set. In addition, we also added pencil sharpeners that could be placed in the classroom for the entire class to use.

Last year, a Buddhist Institute advised us that they needed some natural paint, which could be used to paint Thangka as well as Torma making for ritual ceremonies. Thangka is a well-known religious artwork in the Tibetan culture. Scroll paintings on cloth or paper were very common. Due to its gorgeous color and delicate placement procedures, Thangka has always been regarded as treasures. Torma had great significance in the Tibetan Buddhism. At the institute, the students also take course studies about how to make Thangka and Torma. Torma is used to offer to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas then given to all sentient beings. Our team spent a lot of time looking for the mineral paint that was purchased this year. It is produced by Suzhou Jiangzi Xu, with bright colors and easy to blend.  When the manufacturer knew that our paint was to be given to the Buddhist Institutes, they not only offer to cover all the transportation costs, but also pack and send the paint to every region for us. We were very thankful. 

As with last year, this year we continued to cooperate with SIMBALION stationery company to order the twelve-color colored pencils and to expand the range, sending them to children in Taiwan, Bhutan, India and Nepal.  Also in China, given the support of our manufacturer, we purchased a group of colored pencils that were environmentally friendly.

This year in Taiwan, we had added a sports bottle. It would match the lightweight schoolbag that we designed for monastic students. The bottle not only conform with the hygiene standards for food containers, but could place nicely into the outside pocket of the schoolbag.

In order to avoid material damage during transportation, DENER volunteers also came to the factory in Wanhua District this year to organize all the stationery that were to be sent to Nepal and India. We boxed, packaged and labeled each boxes carefully with DENER’s own shipping marks. Then bundled the boxes tightly with ropes.

We would like to thank all our manufacturers who cooperate with us. They carefully completed all the processes, reconfirmed the details and delivered on time. They also helpedwith labeling and shipping of the boxes for us. Due to the numbers of schools in Chinaand the increasing number of stationeries we ordered each year, manufacturers had offered to help us with all the shipment details to each school. This year, the postal shipping rate had also risen. And in order to make the transportation a smooth one, the manufacturers carefully calculated for us the most economical packaging sizes and then took these shipments to the post office again and again.

This year

DENER Children Foundation

Customized
:

15,000 ball point pen

2,000 mechanical pencils and pencil lead

5,400 erasers

4,800 exercise books

1,200 boxes of eco-friendly hexagon pencils (12 pcs)

2,100 12-color color pencil holders (Eco-Friendly)

3,000 cases of SIMBALION 12 color pencil

2,000 pencil cases

筆袋 2,000份

320 Chinese dictionaries

37 boxes of Jiangzi Xu Mineral Paint

12 automatic pencil sharpeners

There are two new schools and institutions. List of partner schools and institutions include:

Nepal

Taiwan

India

Bhutan

China

With the annual expansion of DENER stationery program and ten years of uninterrupted persistence, we feel deeply that everything we have in our lives was not a given. The pen and eraser, seemingly insignificant, is a product of so many people’s hard work from production, processing, packaging to transportation. This is true for us who live in a world with abundant resources, but for those children who were far away in the remote areas with no water or electricity, it is unbearably difficult for them.

For a project this size to complete requires a lot of people’s assistance and teamwork. Everyone and every aspect of the process affect each other and is of equal importance. Because of this project, many people began using their design expertise; some people provided us with advice and assistance in procurement and logistics; and even more people responded quickly to support the project for many years. Every little bit of the effort from each one of us intertwined into a bigger network that connects all of us together. Every time we think about this, we are immensely grateful. A pen is a symbol of encouragement for the children to continue their study; and the goodwill from all us, we know will be well received