He Junchang (second right), a Xinhua photojournalist, talks with farmers in Gaojiu village, Rongjiang county, Guizhou province. They told him in early September how they had been fighting drought. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING - During a business trip to Honghe Hani and Yi autonomous prefecture in Yunnan province, three reporters from Xinhua News Agency spotted a shabby and dangerous primary school building that looked like it would collapse at any minute.

Journalist Wang Jinfu learned from school principal Long Deyun that the building, which accommodated 90 students, was made of dirt and had not been repaired for 55 years.

Long said he and the villagers of Haibo had reported the problem to the government many times. They were told it would cost more than 200 million yuan ($31 million) to build a modern primary school and that the government had no funding for this particular school.

According to a policy of Yunnan's education department, a school with so few students should be merged into a larger one. The school in Haibo was not closed, however, because without it the children would have to walk tens of kilometers through the mountains to attend school every day.

The reporters went to Li Baosheng, director of the Mile county education department, to ask for help. Although Li sympathized with the students, he said he had no choice due to the policy.

The next day, a story about the school was published as top news on Xinhuanet.com. That evening, reporter Wang received a phone call from Li, who told him leaders at higher levels had read the story and asked that the school be rebuilt.

Three days later, officials from the prefecture and county government met at the school. They decided to invest 230 million yuan in the project, picked a reconstruction plan and set the timetable on site.

The students will be moved temporarily to another building in the village, and will move into the new school after it is finished in March.

"The president of Xinhua keeps saying that we must emphasize achieving real effects during the Go Grassroots campaign," said Liu Siyang, director of the chief editor's office at Xinhua.

"One of the priorities of the campaign is to write critical and reflective stories. We must find out what difficulties the people have and what they are hoping for."