Teaching Migrant Kids

---

At the weekends I’m now teaching art and crafts to some of Beijing’s Migrant Children. They are the kids of migrant workers who have come to Beijing from other provinces and because of this they are denied various basic benefits that other children get, like education. So there are some schools set up by the migrant communities for their kids, but its not up to the standard of proper Chinese schools.

So as a result, an NGO (non-governmental organisation) has been set up by Westerners to accommodate these kids, The vision being for these kids is for them not to be ‘marginalized, treated as secondary, peripheral or of minor importance.’ At the moment, the Saturday programme is teaching 500 kids English and Art and Crafts over a period of 12 weeks. There are 6 other people in my team (4 Chinese, a Korean and Canadian) and we’re in a school teaching 100 kids between us.

I’m teaching Art and Crafts and its so much fun! So far we’ve done self portraits, made pictures out of beans and paintings out of vegetable stamps. (I spent yesterday afternoon cutting up potatoes, carrots, celery, onions and apples) The kids are so funny, we’re meant to speak to them in English but its sometimes just easier to talk to them in Chinese. I’ll put some photos up of some of the kids looking proud with their artwork!

---

Comments

[Hannah]

Amazing Clo
My lovely Clo, how amazing are all the kids. Looks like so much fun, wish i could come (",) xxx