Introduction to Westup
westup = west+up, for the development of western China;
westup = west+student+plan, for a program that helps western students;
westup = west+student+help, for volunteers and sponsors who are helping those students.
westup, images and stories from western China in a unique perspective.

Western Photographer Mr. Wang Bo
Wang Bo, born in Tianshui, Gansu in 1964, a documentary photographer，has been for 20 years tirelessly helping and taking photos of poor children who would have dropped out of school. His footprints can be found in over 10 provinces in Western China.

With his first hand materials and personal experience, Mr. Wang has held more than 30 exhibitions in big cities.  His exhibitions have allowed him to arrange over 13,698 one-to-one sponsorships for children and 241 for substitue teachers.

Introduction to Wang Bo Program:

In face of dry and infertile mountain areas in China West, Wangbo engages in recording children who have discontinued their study and will be unable to go to school due to the poverty with his camera in recent years.He's been walking in Gansu, Ningxia, Shanxi, Qinghai and Sichuan provinces,recording for both students and substitute teachers,with a unique perspective.

On the journey, those stories became forever images, e.g. the students who read worn books in the dangerous and sinking classrooms, children who desire for studying in school while have to browse and bear heavy work and their bright eyes that reflect not only poverty and mischance but also the hope. These images repeatedly remind Wangbo of his responsibility and it is these children's suffering that urges Wangbo to go to poor and lagged western mountain area.

In the winter of 1996, Wangbo took a set of pictures named Returning to School, which won excellence reward in "I want to go to school" photograph contest jointly held by China Photographers Association, China Youth Development Foundation and Chinese Teenagers News. When he went to Yangjia Mountain, Tianshui city to visit Li Huxia who seeks help with 100 yuan bonus, she became a rural labor outside of the home. Standing on Huangtu Highland and facing brisk wind, Wangbo felt very regretful for that and decided to assist school children by photograph in order to make more children enjoy the right of studying.

Undertaking children's hope, Wangbo took actions bravely in face of lots of difficulties and blocks. He made investment in 31 activates of Love in action-donation photograph exhibits for poor children in China West. This action resulted in donation from many people in various fields of the society for 8261 poor students. Over 300 students passed the examination of 61 universities or colleges such as Chongqing Normal University, Civil Aviation University of China, Lanzhou University and Qinghai University, which were assuredly grateful.

Wang Bo has paid out great efforts for these dropout students. He is as poor as a church mouse besides the camera and film. Years of rushing about and malnutrition forge him to the verge of fall down. Just before long, he still selected film and wrote captions for the exhibition despite the diseases in his poor family in Gansu .…..

The image is silent and forceful. Wang Bo's photos reflect hardship and the helplessness to poverty. They evoke the compassionate and attention from the bottom of the people's heart just like a voiceless strength. It seems that we felt children's thirsty of knowledge and the wishes of improving the poor conditions …

About the Website:
In recent years, Mr. Wang has collaborated with the Loving Heart Society of Peking University to launch the Loving Heart--Wang Bo Plan. This plan utilizes the internet to find sponsorship for western children as well as attract attention, supervision, and support from the public. We believe that through implementation of the 9 years compulsory education policy, the problem of poor children dropping out of school will be gradually alleviated.