Business tycoon follows heart to give back to society

Sha Wanli, manager of a construction company and one of the first private business owners in Fanshi county, Shanxi province, in the early 1980s, thinks that donating money to build schools is the best way help people change their fate.

A landlocked area encircled by the Taihang Mountains, Fanshi was listed as a national poverty-stricken county until two years ago. Sha, 67, feels happy that all the 266,000 Fanshi residents have now been lifted out of poverty thanks to their hard work over the generations.

He has done his part, too. In the past forty years, Sha has built a road to the Fanshi Experimental School, renovated and expanded more than 30 primary schools, and founded nine primary schools to ensure that all children in the county have access to basic education close to home.