Recently, an elderly woman touched many people's hearts. She was honored (给与奖励) as a role model in China's fight against poverty (贫穷). Her name is Xia Sen.
Over the past years, 98-year-old Xia Sen has given away most of her personal savings to help students from poor families in Danfeng, Shaanxi, and Shangyou, Jiangxi get an education. Born in 1923, Xia was only 15 years old when she became a teacher in Yan'an. While teaching she kept learning. Years later, she went to work as a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
In 2006, Xia visited Xijie Primary School in Danfeng. The school was old and in bad condition. That made her very sad. She spent 20,000 yuan buying desks and books for the students.
In 2008, she took out 200,000 yuan and helped Zhaogou Primary School in Danfeng build a classroom building. It is a building with eight bright and clean classrooms, which is a complete change from what their old classrooms looked like.
Five years later, Xia used 1 million yuan of her savings to set up the "Xia Sen Scholarship ( 夏森助学金)" to help high school and college students from poor families in Danfeng and Shangyou. So far, at least 182 students have gotten help from the scholarship to pay for their education.
Some students who got Xia's scholarship went to Xia's home to visit her in 2018. To their surprise, Xia and her husband led a very simple life. "I was moved by Granny Xia and her husband," one student said.
Though Xia and her husband have given away most of their savings to help the poor students, they always say that what they have done is far from enough. Xia often says her life is much better than her life in Yan'an. Now her only hope is that she can help more students.
