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'Relay' teachers help poor pupils

2014-03-21 16:46 Shanghai Daily Web Editor: Si Huan
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Professionals are now using their one-week annual leaves for volunteer teaching — in relays — in remote and backward areas.

According to China's labor law, those who have worked more than 1 year but less than 10 get only 5 days of annual paid leave. They add weekends and national holidays to lengthen the period, but it's not much.

Many would like to volunteer, but time is an issue, since most teaching projects last a month or more.

The Volunteer Teaching Relay campaign launched by the Youth League Committee of the Pudong New Area makes it possible for them to help.

This year the charity campaign has received more than 100 volunteer applicants, more than twice the number from last year, to pitch in and give a week. Around a third are chosen. Volunteering period varies from a week to a month.

"Doing something meaningful and really helping others are wonderful. Providing help to improve schooling in backward areas is my dream," says volunteer Lu Jie, who works for Elder University in Pudong.

Last Sunday she was off to Yunnan Province. "Although this annual vacation is only seven days, I will remember for the rest of my life," she said before departure.

Lu is one of 6 volunteers living or working in Pudong to head out to Yunnan, the second group since the Volunteer Teaching Relay kicked off this month. It runs through the end of May.

This year, 45 volunteers in total are participating in the project from March 1 to June 1, teaching at Longlin Primary School in a mountainous area of Xishuangbanna. Courses include English, reading, music, art, computer skills and life skills.

"The minimum volunteer period has been shortened to seven days, making it possible for us, ordinary white-collar workers, to use our annual vacation to help out," Lu says.

The Volunteer Teaching Relay launched last year became one of the most popular Youth League Committee activities in Pudong, according to Gu Qian, from the committee. The project is said to be the first of its kind in Shanghai and it collaborates with various non-government organizations.

"One of the biggest problems for white-collar volunteers is time," Gu says. "It's hard for them to ask for a long leave from work."

The relay system lets them realize their hope of assisting poor children, he says.

Last year, when the project started, 20 volunteers joined. This year more than 100 professionals and civil servants have applied. A third were selected to go to Yunnan, group by group.

The volunteers include a senior executive who will spend his entire 3-week vocation there, as well as an American oil painter named Kevin who will teach drawing and art.

"Most of those children have never been off the big mountain and we're going to tell them what the world outside is like," says 27-year-old volunteer Fang Zhenyu, a notary assistant at the Pudong Notary Office. He used to sing in a campus band and plans to teach music.

The short stints are convenient for volunteers, "but short-term assistance schooling definitely has its disadvantages," says Gu, "Volunteers come and go quickly and local teachers were skeptical at first of the effectiveness of the approach."

After a lot of discussion, volunteers tried to overcome the problem by focusing on subjects such as art and reading, rather than those that require continuing such as Chinese literature, science and mathematics.

Each course is scheduled for two weeks, taught by two teachers who know the lesson plan and arrange for smooth transition.

Charity as a career

In this way, volunteers with artistic abilities such as painting or singing are selected.

"We hope this will help students discover their talents and expand their views," Gu says.

Yao Yuan, a 26-year-old NGO employee, took part in the relay last year, spending one month teaching Chinese reading in Yunnan. As he works for an NGO, Jiuqian Volunteer Center, he isn't limited to five days' holiday.

Last Sunday, he just returned from a week's volunteering in Yunnan.

"Helping each child live their own life — that's the spirit of the NGO I work for, and it's my dream," he says. "That's why I choose charity as my career."

People may think there are disadvantages when volunteers come and leave for just a couple of days, he says, "but I think short-term volunteering give more people opportunities to join the teaching team.

"It's good for poor children in remote mountainous areas to come in contact with different people with different background. It helps them grow up," he adds.

In addition to art and music, English and computer classes are very popular among students and teachers and there isn't much of a transition problem between the two visiting teachers.

Life skills is another important subject.

"Caring about others and learning how to deal with negative outside temptations are topics we will discuss with students. We will try to guide them to grow up in a healthy way," Lu says.

With the help volunteers, the Longlin Primary School has founded their own drama group, art group and music group. A student chorus will be established soon.

"We are really looking forward to their performance in Shanghai in the near future," Gu says.

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