The long-awaited trip to Ganzi, Sichuan finally kicked off.  The team consisted of colleagues who have been together for decades, counselors, college students, and a high school teacher with more than 20 years of teaching experience.  All of us with a common goal, not afraid of the long distance, came with the hope to bring more knowledge to children here and allow their dreams to fly.

From early morning to sunset, the bumps along the way from Chengdu to Ganzi, made us very tired. But when we saw the mountain with winding path, blue sky and white clouds, herds of cattle and sheep, and colorful golden owls, we all forgot our exhaustion.  I was even reluctant to sleep in the car, afraid that I would miss the beautiful scenery.

Early in the morning, the children all came, I was worried about how to be friend with them.  Suddenly, a teacher led the children to start making paper cranes.  After a while, big and small paper cranes were in the hands of the children.  The boy also folded paper airplane, girl folded long nails.  The teachers were also interested in them and started to learn from the kids.  Everything was so natural that I couldn’t help but admire the ingenious arrangements of our organizers.

Next, everybody sat around in a circle and read Andersen fairy tale.  Classic fairy tale is the easiest way to help children understand and establish correct values.  During the reading activity, children correct each other’s pronunciations, and the teacher properly guided students to bravely showed their ideas and asked questions.  The teacher also gave kids sufficient time to think, encouraged them find out the answer themselves.

In the afternoon, when we came to the classroom door, there were already some children waiting for us.  As class time was up, we found that the classroom became crowded.   Some children called their siblings and some called their neighbors to come.  Needless to say, they love this kind of teaching method, so they invited their good friends and wanted to share this happy learning experience.  However, with more children, the class became chaotic and once out of control.  Fortunately, we had a teacher with many years of teaching experience.  She taught the kids to follow a ”passcode”, then the children immediately became quiet in unison.

The teacher took out crayons and paper and began the afternoon class.  She asked the kids to draw their home on their own beautiful origami.  Children were fond of colors; they colored their warm homes and brought every family member into the painting.  After completing, everyone had to step on the stage and introduced his or her work.  At last, the teacher gave out the homework: “Please show your work to your parents tonight and let them write down an encouraging word, and bring it to class tomorrow.”While seeing the works of their children, the parents are then involved in his or her learning.  This will give the children more encouragement and support, allowing them to know that their parents are always loving and caring for them.

Teachers had many kinds of teaching methods. The most memorable was the picture book learning.  With a simple picture book, the teacher changed the teaching method from the past; first allow the children to make up the story themselves, then later ask them to take turns reading the picture books.  Then together they can see whether the story they compiled were the same as the original story.  A simple picture book, using this method, not only improves learning and understanding, but also greatly invites children’s thinking.  It definitely made them enjoy reading from the book more.

A child is like a rising sun, his childhood wish can lead his life to happiness.  Although they lived in remote mountains, they looked forward to the outside world.  It’s our responsibility to bring high-quality education resources to them, so that children could fly their dreams under the blue sky.  We asked children to write down and read out loudly their wishes, hoping that their wishes would not only stay in the mountains.

Hey kids, we saw the love for reading from your innocent smiles.  We saw the pursuit of happiness from your passionate singing.  We saw the yearning for knowledge from your longing eyes and the sadness when we had to say goodbye. Please believe that we would work hard to come back next year!

~Volunteers Guo-jiao

“從玉樹回來，早上起床后還依稀夢境，想抬頭再看看玉樹的朝霞和藍天，發現人已然身處上海！唏噓自己為什麼會覺得恍如隔世

這雖然不是我第一次參加德內兒助學基金會的實地愛心文具發放活動，但腦海裡深深的映入了玉樹之行的一幕幕，就像歌詞裡寫的“在我深深的腦海裡”。也很感恩有這次機會和各位志工的成就！

一抹抹高原的紅色，一張張天真爛漫的笑臉，盡管他們的衣服是那樣朴素，就算是“混搭”風也依然快樂！一個個忙綠的身影，是老師和支教義工溫情的奉獻，心裡暖暖的！聽說學校的老師是考上城市裡大學，畢業后返回家鄉來教學，選擇在山裡奉獻著自己的青春年華，真心給他們按贊。因為我們知道他們面對過誘惑，舍棄了舒適生活，最終選擇家鄉回饋和奉獻！

當伸出手遞上一件件文具，看見孩子們臉上喜悅的表情，嘴角是彎彎的，蹦蹦跳跳來領文具。讓我想起了，小時候有人送我文具時的場景，那種快樂和無以言表的幸福∼∼原來給予是雙向的，好似文具是給他們的，他們卻也給予我心靈最深處的溫暖，謝謝你們！”~ Lilly 李顏全