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Working with a small core professional staff, during 2007/2008 CHP is focusing its efforts on three projects: Friends of Old Beijing, Dai Cultural Revitalization and Strengthening Media’s Role in Cultural Preservation. The first of these projects targets mainstream communities in the nation’s capital, while the second targets a minority community in a distant border region of Yunnan Province in China's southwest; between these two extremes, other communities will be added as resources permit. The third project uses the media as a means to reach out to communities around the country with the cultural heritage protection message. All three projects are underway and producing results.
Friends of Old Beijing
 This program works through a network of volunteers to increase awareness of Beijing's 2001 Conservation Plan for Twenty-five Historical Conservation Areas, and of the related laws, regulations, policies and guiding principles. The destruction of hutongs and courtyard houses is well-known, but much remains that is worth preserving for future generations. Through its volunteers, CHP is helping residents (as well as local government officials, teachers, students, architects and journalists) to understand the value of Beijing's historic neighborhoods and to be aware of the laws and regulations protecting them, as well as providing them with practical information on what they can do to renovate courtyards and neighborhoods while preserving the essential historical qualities of Old Beijing. An ongoing program to monitor adherence to official conservation plans in designated areas culminates in a major and carefully documented annual report to the Beijing Municipal Government.
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Dai Cultural Revitalization
 In Yunnan Province in the far southwest of China, close to the Burmese border in Meng Lian District, live the Dai minority, cousins of the Lao, Shan and Thai peoples farther south. Their rich culture is in danger of dying out in the next few decades as the younger generations of Dai lose knowledge of their ancestral lore and way of life. In 2004 CHP selected the Dai village of Meng Ma to launch a project recording in Dai script all aspects of Dai life and culture. This first phase of the project was carried out by volunteer village elders, who are the repositories of Dai cultural knowledge. The text they produced will be published as a bilingual Chinese-Dai book, with English introduction and abstract. Next steps in this project will focus on language revitalization, restoring indigenous weaving, building a museum of local culture, and architectural preservation.
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Strengthening Media’s Role in Cultural Preservation
 Media is the most effective means of communicating the importance of cultural heritage preservation to a broad audience of local communities around the nation. Journalists and editors are keen to help in the cause, but lack basic relevant knowledge; to address this gap, CHP will conduct a series of short training seminars for media at various locations in China. In addition, CHP will develop itself as a resource center for media on issues relating to cultural heritage preservation, and will institute a program of regular releases of newsworthy cultural preservation information to various media channels.
In carrying out its mission, CHP also maintains a hotline for community reporting on threats to cultural heritage, is building an information center on cultural heritage protection, and carries out advocacy campaigns on a case-by-case basis.
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