My Impressions of Hunan

There are so many things that we take for granted in our fast-paced, hectic lives. Things such as education, which we are all privileged to have so we rarely think twice about it. However, in Hunan the Miao and Tujia children I met, really made me stand back and think about how lucky we are.
These children come from rural farming families, who make their living on growing their crops. However this is not enough to live on and it is usual for adult family members to leave and travel to the cities to find work so they have some extra money to send home. Nevertheless these jobs themselves are seldom well-paid due to lack of education from some of the older villagers who venture into the city. So it really falls on the younger generations to help their families by having the education that their parents didn’t or couldn’t have. What makes this difficult is the amount it costs to get a good education. To you or me it may not seem like much but to these children just being able to afford to get into higher education is almost like a dream.  Therefore being able to help these children to make their dreams become reality is highly gratifying since this one gesture can change the course of their lives for the better.
What does education mean to these children? It means that they are able to imagine a world beyond the small farms in Hunan or being a part of an assembly line in a city. They will be able to dream impossible dreams.  Most importantly, higher education gives them the chance, and that is all they seek. The opportunity to show what they are capable of and what they are capable of achieving despite the odds.
Because education is such a precious gift for these children, their attitude to schooling is very different from children in Hong Kong. We generally don’t ever give school a second thought. But these children can’t wait to sit at a desk, open a book and learn. Their enthusiasm is infectious and self-effacing. I found myself being somewhat ashamed by what I remember of my own school days- I took a lot for granted, I had likes and dislikes in certain subjects and, perhaps, looking back could have made much more of my time there.
While these children need our help, they are not looking for our sympathy. Their lives have been difficult and no amount of empathy can efface the personal struggles and tragedies that they have faced. What they have in abundance is determination and our charity is really there to provide the first steps towards putting a smile back on their faces and making them feel proud of themselves. My lasting impressions of this visit was of the two schools we visited. Where we provided a chance for the students to engage in some fun English-learning activities in attempts to allow them to learn English and to just have fun with it. Being able to take part and to talk to them was an honour but more importantly to see how children, at first shy and reserved can suddenly be transformed into a riotous and happy group.

Samantha Wynell-Mayow