The Amity Foundation

Beate Engelen, from the Hong Kong office of the Amity Foundation, has sent this update from her visit to our project sites in western China:

I have travelled in Gansu for several days now, investigating Amity’s poverty alleviation projects in the poorest, drought-ridden south-western parts of the province. Usually, I ask the farmers about their economic situation, especially about family members who are migrant workers. All families here depend on their migrating family members when it comes to earning cash. Their fields at home yield just enough to feed the hungry crowd at home. Farming in south-western Gansu is all subsistence farming, and as farmers, local people have no access to any markets – for the simple reason that they have nothing to sell.

Continue reading ‘Rural Gansu: What economic crisis?’

Students from Suzhou Singapore International School (SSIS) visited Henancun School in Nanjing, a school for migrant workers’ children that Amity has been supporting since 2004. The group of 18 students and 2 supervisors stayed with kids aged between 4 and 6 in kindergarten class for a whole day in March and had interactive activities in English. The students, who are from the U.S.A., Singapore, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, were well-prepared with songs, games, and small teaching items. They showed great care, skill, patience and creativity during the activities. According to Diwen Goh, a 15-year-old leader of the group, they had practiced several times in local kindergartens in Suzhou. John Miskelly, a maths teacher from SSIS who served as program supervisor, said it was great to see the students so dedicated in this mission, and expected the students could understand the work of teachers better.

Continue reading ‘International students teach kindergarten children’

Butler University in the United States sent a group of nine students to Nanjing to participate in Amity’s Service-Learning Project. The team was led by one teacher. They taught English for three half days at the Mingguang Jindu School for the children of migrant workers, which is located in a suburb of Nanjing, and visited the Amity Printing Company as well as places of interest in Nanjing.

Continue reading ‘Butler University Students Participated in Service-Learning’

During the hottest days of summer, 22 students from Yale University and Hunan University came together to offer their help to children of migrant workers in Nanjing. During this 4-day ‘summer camp’, they enlightened the pupils and entertained them, encouraging them to be active, bold communicators. It was also a good opportunity for the American and Chinese college students to learn more of the life of migrant workers in China and the hardships they meet.

Staffers of the Amity-sponsored Migrant Workers Legal Aid Station in Nanjing visited a building site on 24 May. Representatives of Amity, the Jiangsu Province Department of Justice, the Nanjing City Bureau of Justice and the Yuhuatai District Bureau of Justice went there to hand out copies of the Legal Aid Station’s “Migrant Workers’ Rights Manual”.

Continue reading ‘Legal advice for migrant workers’

For several years, the Amity Foundation has run projects for migrant workers and their families, and above all for their children, who have little access to education. Since 2000, we have supported schools for the children of migrant workers in Nanjing, providing them with sports equipment, computers, desks and chairs and other teaching equipment. Amity has also sent teaching volunteers to these schools. In this way, Amity has managed to improve the conditions and raise the level of education.

Continue reading ‘Scholarships for children of migrant workers’

In April, Amity received a donation of 200 basketballs. The donor remained anonymous and could not be contacted in any way. Amity passed the balls on to five schools for the children of migrant workers in Nanjing. Amity hopes the balls will be put to good use at the schools, both during P.E. classes and during students’ spare time, and would like to express its gratitude to the generous anonymous donor.

Yurun Group, a Nanjing-based big food company, hosted the first “Amity Foundation Health Education Seminar” on 21 March 2007. This seminar aims to tackle insufficient knowledge about infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health and sexually transmitted diseases among workers who live and work in the Nanjing region without being officially registered residents. This training seminar was supported by Nanjing Xiaoshi Hospital, China Southeast University and Nanjing Medical University.

Continue reading ‘Health education among migrant workers’