• Tens of thousands of migrants reached – Combined, the education and economic empowerment projects funded through this Initiative benefitted more than 29,000 migrants (8,231 directly and 20,985 indirectly).
• Models replicated in other Chinese cities – Three organisations in the Initiative have taken their unique models, piloted in Beijing, and replicated them in the cities of Shanghai, Chongqing, and Chengdu.
• Influence on government policies – The pioneering organisations that make up this Initiative and their programmes are having an influence on local and even national rural-to-urban migrant policies, shaping the development of China’s civil society.
• Vocational training results in improved income – 4,395 migrants have received vocational training, most of whom have been placed in or found jobs. Increased income from those jobs has changed the circumstances of many families.
• After-school programmes – 1,758 primary school-aged migrant children benefitted from after-school programmes.

More than 150 million rural Chinese residents have migrated to China’s booming cities in search of work, in what is often referred to as the largest human migration in history. These rural-to-urban migrants are one of the most vulnerable populations in China’s cities. Migrants take on mainly “3-D” jobs – jobs that are demanding, dirty and dangerous. Most migrant labourers earn an average monthly income of ¥ 966 (US $120), just 20 percent of the average for Beijing residents. They live in slum neighbourhoods and often face discrimination. Beijing’s migrant population – more than three million migrant workers and about 400,000 migrant children – accounts for nearly a quarter of the city’s population.

Due to China’s residence permit laws, rural-to-urban migrants are unable to benefit from social services and their children often face challenges in accessing quality education, the key to a brighter future in China’s extremely competitive academic environment. The permit restrictions and unreasonably low wages are obstacles that prevent migrants and their children from accessing the prosperity ladder.

The US $1,087,406 China Migrant Initiative was designed to address the challenges that rural-to-urban migrants face in Beijing communities. Because China’s NGO sector is very young, the Initiative worked with four community-based organisations (CBOs) which were relatively inexperienced but had demonstrated both effectiveness and the ability to innovate. The overall objective was to equip migrants with the training, resources and opportunities they need to overcome poverty and to succeed in an increasingly competitive academic and professional landscape. In order to achieve this goal, the four CBOs piloted several new programmes aimed at providing children with adequate and affordable education and migrant men and women with job skills and viable job opportunities. The education and vocational training programmes were expected to directly benefit over 8,200 lives.

The huge influx of people migrating from rural areas to China's booming coastal cities in search of a brighter future is shaping China in the 21st century. With an increasingly prosperous urban middle class, creating economic opportunities for rural migrants is important to maintaining social stability. The China Migrant Initiative helped address this challenge in Beijing by providing vocational training, benefiting more than 8,200 migrants and their families over three years, as well as helping thousands of children of migrants improve their chances of success in the classroom and in life. Perhaps the greatest – and hardest to quantify – aspect of this Initiative is the funding of pilot programmatic models that have been successful and that are now being replicated in other Chinese cities.

The programmes that comprise this Legatum Foundation-funded Initiative are truly pioneering. They are at the forefront of work with migrant communities and of developing civil society within the Chinese context. These organisations accomplished the following through the Initiative: opening low-cost private schools for children of migrants; creating hundreds of jobs for vulnerable migrant women; drawing the attention of the central government through education and vocational training programmes; helping to create a community of practice among organisations working with migrants across China; providing vocational training to blind adults; and offering training that imbues a new sense of dignity by raising the confidence of migrants who are often discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens in the cities where they work.

The Initiative exceeded its original granting strategy goal of reaching over 8,000 migrants. However, through active portfolio management over three years, grants were expected to reach a revised goal of over 9,100 people. Challenges faced by two vocational training programmes meant that the Initiative’s final results were 90 percent of the revised figure. This is not surprising, however, given that almost every project in the Initiative was a learn-as-you-go pilot or the expansion of a project with only a few years of experience and as social sector pioneers, these organisations had few models from which to draw experience. By the examples their programmes provide and through carefully nurtured relationships with national, provincial and local government bodies, these organisations have raised awareness of the social needs of migrants and are helping to influence the Chinese central government’s migrant policies.