Children as young as six from Atule’er village in China have to climb unsecured vine ladders on a vertical cliff every two weeks to get home from class as their village is at the top of a 2,624-foot mountain. Hence, for them, the journey to and from school is usually a matter of life and death. A photographer for Huanqiu travelled to this remote village to snap the dangerous journey.
Located in southwestern China of Sichuan Province, the population of this 200-year-old village is small and consists of around 70 families. The community is completely self-sufficient and most people make a living growing chilies and corn on the fertile land.
This cliff village sits on top of a 2,624-foot-tall peak while the school is at the bottom of this mountain. The children must climb up and down a series of 17 rickety ladders placed against an 800-meter tall cliff in order to go to school. The children spend 2 weeks at the Le’er Primary School once they complete the journey, after which they climb back up the same treacherous ‘ladder’ to go home.
The journey can take more than two hours for the children and there are always three parents climbing with the children. According to officials, the life-threatening journey has resulted in the death of at least eight people over the years.
The situation is made even more perilous by the frequent rain and snow, yet these kids are forced to risk their lives for the sake of their education. This deadly journey to the school has also dissuaded some parents from sending their children to school.
Zhaojue County office secretary Ji Ke Jin Song said: “The main problem is that we can easily move the villagers to a nearby city but without their farmland they have no job. They have good land resources and have a high yield of crops. Building a road to the village would cost 60 million yuan (£6.2 million) which is not cost effective because the number of people is so low.”