A team of 21 volunteers from ECNU spent an unforgettable week with students in a remote village school in Jiangxi Province in July, 25 years after their predecessors made their debut visit to the school.
The summer camp aims to help the education of the local primary school.
The volunteers, including teachers and students, came to the Lingzhang Primary School in Lingxi Township in Shangrao City, which is more than 500 kilometers away from Shanghai, for “Fonian Love Summer Camp”, which lasts from July 12 to 19.
The camp, named after Liu Fonian, one of the former presidents of ECNU, was organized by ECNU’s Youth League Committee and Talent School, and Xinzhou District Education and Sports Bureau of Shangrao.
The summer camp makes the local people reminiscent of ECNUers' debut visit to the school 25 years ago.
ECNU and local government officials, including Ren Youqun, vice president of ECNU who now serves as a vice mayor of Shangrao temporarily; ECNU Vice President Dai Liyi; tenured professor Zhuang Huiming; Li Zhicong, top leader of the No. 2 High School Attached to ECNU; Zhou Fuhua, director of Xinzhou District’s publicity department; Zhong Ming, chief of Xinzhou District Education and Sports Bureau; Zeng Hua and Xu Ming, leaders of Lingxi Township, attended the opening ceremony of the summer camp in the Lingzhang Primary School on July 12 and unveiled a new plaque to open the ECNU Project Hope Base.
ECNU volunteers spend an unforgettable week with students at Lingzhang Primary School.
For eight days, the students were divided into classes according to their ages and the volunteers gave lessons covering 12 disciplines such as art, culture and science.
On a touching closing ceremony on July 19, the volunteers and students staged a choral speaking, quartet, textbook drama, suona solo and chorus.
A handicraft exhibition is held to showcase achievements of the summer camp.
A handicraft exhibition was held to showcase achievements of the summer camp, displaying photos, clay painting, leaf bookmarker, handmade tea eggs and solar-powered hybrid auto models.
Ren stressed in a closing speech that it needs everyone’s effort to promote balanced development of education and vowed that Shangrao will increase input in education in the future. He said Xinzhou, as a central district of Shangrao City, should learn from developed coastal areas and set an example for the rest of the city in boosting balanced development of education.
Wang Qizheng presents the plaque for the Volunteer Teaching Base to Fang Ping.
Zhou, former headmaster of the Lingzhang Primary School, is in his 70s (right).
Wang Qizhong, head of Xinzhou District, extended thanks to ECNU volunteers, saying the summer camp had broadened the local children’s minds, enriched their knowledge and trained their skills as well.
Fang Ping, vice chairman of ECNU’s University Council, said the summer camp was just the start of cooperation between ECNU and Shangrao, and more social practice programs will follow.
Each summer, ECNU dispatched more than 300 teams across the country on social practice programs. This year's summer camp was held 25 years after the first group of ECNU volunteers came to the Lingzhang Primary School in the summer of 1991 to set up the Shangrao Project Hope Volunteer Teaching Base. Since then, ECNU had sent volunteer teams to the school each summer in the next three consecutive years until 1993.
In 1991, ECNU volunteers set up the Volunteer Teaching Base at Lingzhang Primary School.
Mr. Zhou, who was then headmaster of the Lingzhang Primary School, was thrilled with the arrival of the ECNU volunteers this year. The man, in his 70s, and Mr. Shu, the incumbent headmaster, managed to recover from a villager’s house the old wooden plaque for the Shangrao Project Hope Volunteer Teaching Base that was hung in the Lingzhang Primary School 25 years ago. The plaque was given to ECNU as a souvenir by Wang Qizhong at the closing ceremony on July 19.
A Lingzhang Primary School student who took part in this year's summer camp poses for a photo with his father (standing behind him) and one of his father's friends. The adults went to the summer camp 25 years ago in the same school..
The cook, who served the ECNU volunteers 25 year ago, is still in service this year.
“At that time, it was a long painful journey for volunteers from Shanghai to get to our school,” Zhou recalled. “They had to take coach for a dozen hours to arrive at Shangrao, from where they had to transfer to take a ferry to cross the Xinjiang River to the school. The school’s accommodation was also poor, with no tap water. They had no choice but to take showers in the river.”
