Miss Chong is back!

It seems like my latest wish to teach again has been fulfilled :).

I came across an article the other day about an NGO called Compassion for Migrant Children and decided to check it out. Turns out, CMC offers several social & educational programs to address Beijing's migrant children population. There's a volunteer program on Saturdays, and volunteers can teach English or Art classes for a few hours/week.

Hmm...sounds like the perfect volunteer opportunity for me :).

Anyway, I had an interview today (it really wasn't an interview) and learned the following:

• There's about 200 million migrants and 2 million migrant children in China
• 500,000 of them live in Beijing
• Migrant children are sometimes coined as "China's forgotten children" - they face sub-par education, inadequate healthcare, unstable residence, extreme poverty, poor hygienic conditions and low self-esteem
  
• The schools they attend are usually dilapidated, overcrowded, and lack clean drinking water and proper lavatories
• There was a 360% increase in the migrant children population from 1997 - 2004, ages 5-14
• According to UNESCO, migrants have contributed to 16% of China's GDP over the past two decades

Pretty depressing right? The list can go on and on...

Orientation & training will start next week. I'm going to teach 2 classes per Saturday, about 25 kids per class.

This will be a very different experience than SHSID.