Education

Amity’s education projects focus on changing hearts and minds. We emphasize people-to-people contact and the building of personal friendships which promote mutual respect and broader global perspectives. Through language teaching and learning, domestic scholarships, service-learning initiatives and support for migrant workers’ children, the Education Division tries to promote a better quality of life and achieve a lasting positive impact on communities.

Example Projects

The School for Migrant Workers' Children, in Nanjing, Jiangsu (known as the "Henan Village School")

Long term teaching by foreign teachers:

Amity Foundation employs foreign teachers from different countries and arranges them to teach English in Colleges in less developed areas. The length of service is at least one year, the longest is already 20 years. Currently, the main distribution of Amity’s foreign teachers are within Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi and other provinces, many of their students have become English teachers to contribute to the education development in remote areas.

Summer School English teacher training courses:

Amity Foundation recruits volunteers from overseas to provide training to primary and secondary schools English teachers in rural areas. Training usually is carried out for three weeks in July. Each year, more than 1,000 English teachers from rural areas benefit from the program. Training courses are mainly focused on verbal skills and Western culture. Chinese teachers learn from foreign teachers, while foreign teachers will learn about Chinese culture. This not only a teachers’ training course, but also facilitates international exchange.

Youth Volunteer Program:

Amity Foundation recruits volunteers from overseas to teach English in domestic secondary schools. Other than teaching English, volunteers also learn Chinese language and visit some places as arranged by schools. Volunteers are mostly high school graduates so that their age is similar to their students, leading to good exchange during and after class.

Service-learning Project:

Overseas volunteers come to China to participate in various service activities, such as taking care of the elderly in nursing homes; carrying out English activities in schools for children of migrant workers etc. Amity Foundation arranges local tours for those volunteers to let them know more about Chinese history and culture or even learn Chinese language. Amity Foundation started this project since 2005, the number of participants is increasing each year, there were approximately 200 participants in 2009.

Projects to help poor students in Northern Jiangsu:

Amity Foundation corporate with “Po Fong Corporation”(普方协会) to subsidize students in relatively under-developed areas within Northern Jiangsu. Most students who receive financial assistance are from single-parent families or their parents are suffered from serious illness leading to financial difficulties. The project has been carried out for ten years and provides financial assistance to about 150 students last year.

Project for poor students in Lishui:

In Lishui, most high school students come from rural areas, many students may not be able to continue study because their parents have either died, divorced or are unemployed. Although schools get funds from some sources, the funds are insufficient thus unable to help all the students to improve the situation. Beginning in 2007, the Amity Foundation cooperates with schools to provide some basic living subsidies to students in need in order to help them complete their studies. During school year 2009-2010, the Amity Foundation continues to provide subsidies to 25 students in Lishui. Funding standard is 150 yuan / person / month; 1,500 yuan / person / year (count as 10 months in school per school year).

Other projects with more information:
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