Record of the Education Charity Activity in Zhongxian County 2012
At 7 a.m. on October 13, 2012, with the autumnrain going on, over 50 volunteers from Chongqing Branch of Industrial andCommercial Bank of China (ICBC) and 51zeng.com, before daybreak, set foot onthe trip to Zhongxian County for education charity.
Zhongxian County Songbai Village ZhongxingPrimary School, a primary school run by the local people, locates in thehinterland of the Three Gorges, 15 kilometers of mountain roads away from thenearest town, with 6 grades, 6 classes and about 130 students at the school.All of the students are peasants’ children living in nearby mountains, of whom30% are extraordinarily poor students. The only electrified education facilityhere is an old desktop computer. As many students cannot afford tuition, theschool has not been making ends meet, and thanks to headmaster HAN Zhiqun who foundways by himself to raise money, the school is able to exist still. This is analmost forgotten corner, but on 13 October, it became an ocean of joy here.Because of the arrival of volunteers, the quiet mountain village boiled, with singingand laughter everywhere. When the bus with volunteers riding in just appeared alittle on the mountainside, they heard the children’s cheers from the mountain.
That is an unforgettable day in life, for everyvolunteer from ICBC and netizen of 51zeng.com.
Half a month ago, GAO Shan, a netizen of51zeng.com, learned by chance that there is such an extraordinarily poorprimary school as owns only seven teachers, and because of its location in ahuge mountain surrounded by mountains, low pay and no more teachers willing to gothere for teaching, which results in the extreme lack of teachers, the childrencannot get good education. Then, he had the idea of education charity, tryingto widen these poor children’s horizons and let them see how wonderful theoutside world is.
At the end of September, headmaster Han unexpectedlyreceived a strange call, on which the zenker (donor) GAO Shan expressed to himthat he would like to provide the school with some help. The unexpectedsurprise made headmaster Han seem to be a bit overwhelmed, and he would neverimagine that the fire of love was about to ignite this silent remote mountainvillage. This education charity activity “Love is like a torch, illuminatingthe wayahead” was organized together by Chongqing Branch of ICBC and51zeng.com, through which a set of multimedia equipment worth more than 20,000yuan and countless sporting goods and school supplies were donated to ZhongxingPrimary School and the charity classroom was built. Henceforth, volunteers inthe main urban area of Chongqing are able to directly communicate with the sponsoredpoor students through video and audio.
Regardless of tiredness after the long journey, thevolunteers threw themselves into the intense teaching activity. They believedthat forms of education charity could be various and methods to be chosen couldalso be numerous. As the saying goes, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for aday. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, it is important to widenthe students’ horizons and cultivate their practical ability and the initialunderstanding of beauty. This kind of psychological correction and help may bemore valuable than mere material giving. To this end, the volunteers spent alot of break time carefully preparing for the activity, and they were dividedinto seven specialized groups: English, painting, handwork, natural study,dance, music and PE, in the form of one keynote teacher + 5 assistant teachersto bring fun classes to children. The volunteer Lily in the English group usedto be an education researcher, and this time she led the children to cheerfulEnglish children’s songs and dances in a very active classroom atmosphere; the PEgroup taught the military boxing and American football with a great flexibledegree, and the children organized themselves to continue to play, which cultivatedtheir team spirit; the Tibetan volunteer Dolma in the dance group taughtstudents Tibetan dance: Melody for Threshing Wheat; the volunteer CHEN Dan inthe music group taught children to play the Chinese lute and sing; volunteersin the handwork group, together with students in the first grade, assembled andfolded the cardboard model of Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, and after the class,a boy took a volunteer’s hand for a long time withoutletting go; teachers in the natural study group, in combination with their owntravel stories, used words and pictures to describe China’s minor ethniccustoms for the students, and the students concentrated on every class.
These things which cannot be learned fromtextbooks made the children so excited, these childish faces brimming withenergy and vitality. They competed to raise their hands to answer questions.During breaks between classes and the lunch break, all students actively playeda variety of games and sports with the volunteers, with the students’ cheerfulfigures around the school playground.
These childish students in the front were all HAN Zhiqun’s own “child”. Seeing these happily running children on theplayground, his face showed a long-absent smile. “I haven’t see the children sohappy for a long time”, he smiled and told us, while he took out a list fromthe pocket and expressed to near volunteers that, it was a list of poorstudents, with detailed records of more than thirty poor students’ names on it.“Many children in this list are from families in which parents are divorced or missingor have lost their ability to work, and nearly drop out”, headmaster Han toldus. Then he pointed on a little girl taking the PE class on the playground, andregretted to say, “She is ZHOU Yufang living in the neighboring Mugua village. Becauseshe is an additional child of her family, her biological parents cruellyabandoned their daughter near an untraversed grave mound on a mountain road. Thanksto a cattle dealer passing by, he told everyone there was an abandoned babynear the grave, and fortunately, an over-forty-year-old bachelor took in andraised her later.” Coming near an art teacher who was giving a class, headmasterHan told us about the situation of another poor student, and at the moment thestudent was seriously listening to the volunteer teacher MO Yunke’s class,learning to draw cartoon animals. “She is ZHANG Xiaoli, living at Group 2,Tianchi of the neighboring village which is 30 kilometers away from here. Hermother suffers from the congenital disability and can walk only with both handsand feet, and her father is a farmer with the broken arm. The family can onlyrely on more than 1,000 yuan of subsidies from the government every year to gothrough difficult days”, headmaster Han said. The volunteers there from ICBCand 51zeng.com were all moved after hearing these. After four o’clock in theafternoon, when the classes ended, an extreme poor students’ introductionmeeting was held. The volunteers would bring these materials of poor studentsback to the main urban area of Chongqing, and then provide “one-to-one charityhelp” to continue the care.
The education charity activity of that day endedat 5 p.m. The children were reluctant to gather at the school gate andtearfully saw the volunteers off, with light of hope shining in their eyes.This activity will have a far-reaching impact on the healthy growth of thesechildren in the mountains. The volunteers not only teach them knowledge, butalso teach them the truth of life, establish the correct values, and mobilizethe children’s learning interest and enthusiasm, which lets them feel warm inthe cold autumn and no longer be lonely on the long way of life.
The zenker GAO Shan holds, now in many remoterural areas, the number of left-behind children continues to increase, andthese children not only are lack of material things, but also needpsychological love and care. In the form of “one-to-one charity help”,volunteers play the role of parents, and through long-term contact with thechildren, pay close attention to their psychological growth tracks, which is anattempt and innovation for the forms of education charity.
Then, the information of poor students in theschool was published on 51zeng.com for support from the whole society.Volunteers of 51zeng.com coupled with over ten poor left-behind children toprovide one-to-one charity help, and each assisted child will receive 200 yuanper month as education sponsorship.
Education Charity Had Set out Again in 2014
“Give children’s dreams a pair of wings”--- arecord of the “Realizing Children’s Dreams” activity held by 51zeng.com forZhongxian County Zhongxing Primary School in the new spring of 2014.
Over 80volunteers from 51zeng.com had set out from Chongqing to the destination ofthis caring activity, Zhongxing Primary School in Songbai Village, ZhongxianCounty on time at 8 a.m. on January 18.
These volunteersfinally reached their destination after 4 hours’ ride.Donations worth over 20,000 Yuan fully piled up on theplayground of Zhongxing Primary School, all of which were cotton quilts, cottoncaps, scarves, gloves and lots of stationery and sporting goods brought byvolunteers to students.
After the activity began, both volunteers and students had givenwonderful performances, among which “Where Are We Going, Dad?” performed byvolunteers from Industrial and Commercial Bank was particularly humorous, and“Three Monks”performed by studentsalso caused a burst of laughter. Besides, the Robot Dance performed by Dadalelemade all children exclaim in surprise and they said this performance should getfull marks.
Everyoneactively participated in such game part as “Perfect Duplication”. Volunteersand students had made concerted effort to finish the mission and gotten snacks,toys and other gifts.
Picturedescription 4: A speech conveyed by a parent of a student with Poliomyelitismade everyone run with tears. The hostess chokedwithsobsand volunteers donated 2,000 Yuan to this mother on site.
In the “Realizing Their Dreams” part, volunteers chosechildren’s dreams they were willing to realize one after another and helpedthese children get to their dream.
Finally,volunteers and over 100 students sang “Tomorrow Will Be Better” together. Theexistence of faith would be the permanently unforgettable warmth on their wayahead.
Through morethan one year’s education charity activities, volunteers had totally donatedmore than one hundred thousand Yuan to Songbai School, of which 42 students hadone-to-one support and 65,300 Yuan were donated to them. Children in thisschool still needed your continuous care.
http://bbs.51zeng.com/article/show.aspx?w_id=2791（Video）
Warmth HadAccompanied Children Together and Maternal Love Had Been Raised by the Crowd in 2016
Activity Recruitment ：http://gongyi.51zeng.com/news/Show.aspx?id=518
There was a private primary school---SongbaiVillage Zhongxing Primary School with numerous left-behind children here in aremote mountain of Zhongxian County, Chongqing. Compared with the lack ofsubstance and nutrition, these children needed spiritual care more. There weremany single-parent children in the school, and their only fathers or motherswho worked far away from home could only come back once a year for the SpringFestival, so these children usually lived with their elder grandparents.
Little Xueyan and her elder brother’s father hadworked away from hometown for many years, and their mother abandoned her andher brother for poverty without being heard from since. Thetwo were living with their grandparents who were nearly 70 years old. Theycould not get to school unless tramped over a hill and went through a forestevery day. A person in his childhood always did not know what sadness was, buttoo much sadness was concealed in their eyes. Little Xueyan’s tears trickleddown her cheek once speaking of her mother.
Huanhuan had the same circumstance.Huanhuan and her two sisters lived farther from their school. The path from herhome to the highway was steep and wet and they had to get up at five o'clockbefore dawn and went down a mountain to school. Their grandparents were too oldto do things with ease, so she had a pair of hands full of calluses at the ageof 12. Besides, she took her 7-year-old brother and 6-year-old sister to schooltogether every day, acting just like the master of her family. But they werestill strong alive like seedlings growing from a stone crack, and their youngminds were carrying too much sadness. The craving for maternal love was theirgreatest wish.
On Zenker’s way to paying home visits, thesechildren were singing and laughing all the way, because they hardly had avisitor to their home. It was sincere joy that was revealed in their eyes atthis time.
At present, as long as a rural family had someeconomic capability, their children would be sent to schools in town, whilethose families must contain economic difficulties whose children were stayingat schools in the village. The pair of siblings above lived in a house locatedin a col. Even there were no people living in the four or fivenewer brick houses next to theirs. Xueyan said their neighbors had moved to thetown and only they lived there nearby.
According to scholars’ statistics, once a childhas not seen his parents for three consecutive months, he will have a deepsense of loss and become irritable. Care and encouragement from partners orother people are needed at this time. The pathfinder charity crowd sourcingmodel of 51zeng.com is now raising maternal love for this pair of siblings,little Xueyan and Huanhuan, We hope their “left-behind” sky will be full ofsunshine in this new year.
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In 2016, 51zeng.com has recruited 24 femalevolunteers in total to be caring mothers for 2 families respectively. Everyvolunteer must be a caring mother for 1 month. In the mother’s venture, she mustcome to her children’s home personally for paying a visit once; contact herchildren once per week and write to her children once.
The “left-behind” sky is lack of love, just likehaze obscures the sun to make the sky murky; there is home where there is love,and the sky will be clear when the love appears. The warmth of Zenker 2016 goesalong all the way with those children and makes their “left-behind” skycolorful.
Activity documentary: http://bbs.51zeng.com/article/show.aspx?w_id=2794
Concluding remarks: The condition of Zhongxian County Songbai VillageZhongxing Primary School has drawn the attention of Chinese Society by Zenkers’continuous support and appeal in the past 5 years. Assistance came from alldirections. More and more volunteers come to the school forteaching-assistance. Teacher Wang who comes from Beijing has been a voluntaryteacher for 1 year after resigning from Sina.com. The local government alsobegins to strengthen support to this school, thus allocating millions toconduct infrastructure construction of this school. Zhongxing Primary Schoolhas taken on an altogether new aspect because this private school originally ina precarious situation has stepped onto the path of developing healthily.
