China Merchants Bank (CMB) joined with the China Youth Development Foundation to begin the "Project Hope - China Merchants Bank Sports Charity Fund" on March 27 and now has raised up to nine million yuan to provide sports facilities for more than 610 Hope Schools around China.

China's sixth-largest bank CMB says that when the bank issues a credit card it donates one yuan to the fund and from each credit card bill it contributes one cent to Project Hope. It has also set up a channel on its website to facilitate donations to the project.

The China Youth Development Foundation began the program to raise funds for construction of primary schools in China's poor rural areas. By the end of last year, the foundation had raised over 3.5 billion yuan to start more than 13,000 Hope Schools. According to a survey from the foundation, 72 percent of Hope Schools do not have quality sports facilities, which inspired CMB, a long-term partner with the foundation, to begin another fund.

So far new sports facilities in 133 Hope Schools have been installed. Information including donor names, contact persons and addresses of the schools can be found on CMB's website, to "keep transparency in public donations", says Tang Zhihong, vice president of CMB.

He adds that volunteers have been sent to Hope Schools who are responsible for installing facilities and training local teachers.