1. Background
The Future of Left-Behind Children Calls for Social Concern
Left-behind children has been a prominent social issue in recent years. It is roughly estimated that there are close to 70 million left-behind children in China, including migrant children in cities and those left by parents at their rural homes. The country’s rapid social and economic development has caused more and more young adults from rural areas to flock to cities. This has created a special adolescent population in the vast countryside – the left-behind children. Unfortunate accidents happened to these children constantly remind us to find an effective solution, calling the family, government, social organizations and the public to take up the responsibility and join the effort.
Tuan Yang, Vice Director of the Center for Public Policy at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences once made the appeal that “the gap between rural and urban areas in China is no longer a gap, but a chasm. Supporting rural development does not mean simply giving financial aid and delivering relief out of sympathy. It means helping them to become self-dependent through cooperation and alliance, change the current situation with their own hands and take control of their own lives.”
Help the Children to Prepare for Future Challenges through Training and Practice
According to 2015 Survey of Boarding School Students in Rural China, moderate level of extracurricular activities is the most effective means to reduce dangerous behavior among students. Voluntary participation in such activities provides teenagers with chances to express and explore themselves, as well as to socialize and communicate with other people, which greatly benefits the development of their social skills. A lot of the activities and projects require team work. It helps the students to learn to collaborate with others and deal with conflicts and divided opinions.
2. Our Project
Dongrun Foundation signed a cooperation agreement with Dongshe School in Nantong in April, 2016. The Foundation contributes 80,000 yuan to hold a session of Summer English Camp in China at Dongshe School in July, 2016 as part of their Caring for Left-Behind Children program.
The Summer Camp program invites volunteers from China and other countries to team up and conduct a series of courses. The carefully designed English classes provide free lessons with interesting teaching methods for left-behind children in rural areas. The program essentially aims at helping the students to build their English language abilities, while gradually creating a communication platform based on English, promoting further education of imagination and innovation, with the ultimate hope of opening a window to the world for the left-behind children in rural China.
3. Activities
2016 Summer Camp Activities
(1) Volunteers set up interesting English classes for the left-behind children from Dongshe School, including games with various themes, interaction, sports games, craft classes. There will essentially be two activities in the morning and one in the afternoon. The classes will be centered on everyday English, combined with various activities to improve English conversation skills and learn about foreign cultures.
(2) On weekends, Dongshe School will arrange sight tours around the city for volunteers from other countries. They will be accompanied by teachers from the school to learn about Chinese culture and customs.
Summer Camp Scale and Organization
8 classes with 30 students in each class.Participants will be 3rd grade to middle school students.
Each class will have one volunteer and two teachers from the school as supervisors.
4. About Dongshe School
Dongshe is a school of nine-year compulsory education located in the eastern countryside of Tongzhou District, Nantong. In a time of rapid urbanization, education in rural China is under ever-growing pressure. Dongshe School believes that for the future development of rural education, schools shall try to rely on rural resources while connect with the cities, explore their own potentials, understand the actual needs of growing children in rural areas and design education programs accordingly.
Dongshe School currently has a faculty of 85 and 828 students, 70% of whom are left-behind or migrant children. The school has won honors and titles including Safe Campus of Jiangsu Province, Green Campus of Nantong, Model Establishment of Tongzhou. It is an activity center for the Caring for Left-Behind Children program in the city of Nantong.