QQ-HuangQin

Duration:3m:27s

About this movie:  

Stuck by the mud flood, we spent 1 week with kids in Sangzao Summercamp.It was organized by Seedling Project, aiming to encourge kids to be little volunteers.

Duration:3m:15s 

Maojiazhuang is on the border between Shanxi and Gansu. It was our first stop, the mission was to learn experience from a creative bathhouse project in this village. It was set up around 2 years ago, aim to resolve the hygiene problem, as people in this place only took a bath twice a year before. Now thanks to some NGO and volunteers, the bathhouse is a landmark for this remote village, and around 2000 people are benefited.

It was in early of July, on our way to a primary school in Xincheng village, it's around 2 hours away from Qingshui County. The landscape along the mud mountain road was spectacular, crossing of golden wheat piles plus green maize trees.

Our bus stopped in the middle of a village, a small one, with dozens of yellow mud houses. We were told it's a Muslim village, and farmers were working in the fields in that season, so only some livestocks walking around.

We visited Li Bin's home. He's supported by Children of Madaifu now, 240RMB per quarter. This boy, an orphan,  stays with his grandparents, his grandma has mind disease. He's only around 10 years old, but you can feel he understands much more beyond his age. He was quite polite, welcoming us like a host.  He waited at the entrance, as he was informed Mr.Yang(Children of Madaifu) would come that day. After he got the money, he put it carefully into his pocket, and  would hand it to his grandpa to keep it.

We didn't stay long. So Li Bin saw us off to the road, then he went back to the fields.

One thing impressed us deeply, we never saw smiles from this boy! He even didn't speak a lot. He's too young to take the family responsibility. But he made it!

On our way leaving the village, Mr. Yang told us:

"You know what's the dream of this boy? A tape-repeater. He once expressed he hopes to have a tape-repeater to learn English."

Do you still remember the big brother from Maojiazhuang, learning French cooking in Shanghai? His name is Zhang Zheng-hai.

Last Saturday I was invited to attend his graducation ceremony from SYB(Shanghai Young Bakers).  It was a nice experience, to see so many kids from remoted areas, now supported to learn a skill here, and so many people caring and supporting them.

Now Zheng-hai has completed his first 6-month study, with a sound evaluation from the school. What's more, the good news came on that day he'll be sent to learn French in Alliance Francaise from this Monday, and hopefully he'll get a chance for further cooking study in France next summer! It's definitely great news for his mother, after so many years struggling, she'll finally access to the harvest!

Actually Zheng-hai has already been working part-timely for Paul, the famous French bread store in Shanghai. So maybe your delicious bread from Paul is made by him. :)

While the teacher hold my hand when I left, said that living in Shanghai is still very difficult for Zhang Zheng-hai, he has only 700RMB per month, his mother is not in good health, and he has to support his young brother in college in certain level, but he never mentions these to anybody else, nor complains as other kids.

因毛家庄的张政海邀请，下午去参加了他们的毕业典礼。这是一个由志愿者和慈善机构组织的活动，帮助筹集资金以资助更多的贫困孩子实现他们的大厨梦。期间得知一个好消息，因品学兼优，从下周开始政海将有机会参加alliance francaise的法语课，希望他能走得更远，他妈妈知道这个消息一定会很开心！

Zhang Zheng-hai

SYB

Zhang Zheng-hai with 2 newcomers from Gansu

with future cookers

About this movie:

Xincheng is actually a muslim village, quite remote, 2 hours by bus far away from Qingshui County. Some kids are sponsored by Children of Madaifu in this village. We visited a central elmementary school there, and plan to help them with a PC room. 
On our way, we saw breath-holding landscape, while the local people never realize that they are living in the heaven!

About this movie:

In this village, people are short of water. Kids need to carry water everyday after class. We'll help them to build a water supply system, to transfer the fresh water from a well under the mountain to the school directly. More than 400 hundred of kids will benefited soon.