Greenheart Grant Goes to Children in Rural China
By Lijuan Zheng, a Greenheart Club grant recipient, and former Work & Travel participant.
Lijuan spent last summer working in Wisconsin on our Work & Travel program and she additionally participated in the Greenheart Club! As an active club member Lijuan earned a grant to do a Greenheart project in her home country of China. Below she shares how she used her grant to help impoverished children of migrant workers in rural China.
Lijuan hugging students
In the rural area of China, there are some lovely kids who are left at home. Where are their parents? In order to support the family, their parents have to leave the hometown and work in big cities as migrants. The kids are left with their grandparents or other relatives.
They are always very lonely, though their parents love them so much. Due to great distances, they can’t feel the deep love from their parents. Children are the future of the motherland and are the nation’s hope. They need love, the love from friends, the love from teachers, and the love from the society. Encouraged by this, some of my schoolmates and I reached an agreement and organized an activity called, “Compassion, dreams interpreted.” We sent our love and best wishes to these kids. We wanted them to know there are still many people who love them, care for them, and want them to have a good growing environment in this world. We want to help them build up the right philosophy so that they can become productive members of society.
At the at the beginning of our activity, we chose a special school where almost all the students are children of migrant workers. We visited their school and taught them some useful knowledge. We also played with them and told them stories, sung to them and so on. The most important thing we did was we let the kids write down their wishes. Encouraging them to study hard, we also chose some kids visit our school. Lastly, we brought the kids some small gifts. I will never forget the happiness on the faces of these lovely boys and girls during our visit.
The day of the visit was a very warm sunny day when my schoolmates and I took the gifts to the school. It happened to be the celebration of the new year. The kids were enjoying a new year special performance. My classmates and watched their wonderful show. The performance was moving.
After the wonderful performance, we started to distribute the gifts. When the kids got a gift they reacted with smiles and some jumped with joy. At that moment I knew all of our work and effort was worthwhile!
Finally, I appreciate the help of Greenheart. I appreciate their contribution to the environment and people. I encourage more people to get involved in Greenheart’s meaningful activities.
Here are some more pictures of Lijuan’s visit to the school in rural China:
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