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Summer camp for ‘left-behind’ children
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WANG Qianfeng, 12, is spending part of her summer school holiday with her parents. While that might seem a normal situation for most children, it’s a rare treat for Wang.
She and her 11-year-old brother live alone in a poor, mountainous village in Guizhou Province. Their parents work as street cleaners far away in Hangzhou. The children are known as “left-behinds” in China.
Wang’s reunion this summer with her parents in Hangzhou is thanks to a summer camp organized by the local government and her parents’ employer, Hangzhou Bowei Environment Co, which handles sanitation services in the city’s Gongshu District.
The camp brought 43 “left-behind” children to Hangzhou this summer. For Wang, it’s her third summer reunion.
“If I weren’t here, I guess I would be playing with my classmates in the mountains,” Wang said. “I like being in this modern city and making new friends. And the food here is much better than back home. But most of all, I am happy that I can be with mom and dad again.”
In the one-month camp, the children are taken on scenic excursions and engage in recreational and educational activities. Volunteers from a local university help out.
“Left-behind children” are a serious problem in China, where parents from impoverished areas often have to leave home and work thousands of kilometers away in big cities. Sometimes the children are left with relatives; other times they are left to fend for themselves.
China has more than 60 million children in rural areas, according to a 2013 report by the All-China Women’s Federation. About 3.4 percent of children in China are “left behinds.”
Back in Guizhou, Wang is “head” of the parentless household.
“I need to take care of my brother,” she said. “I pick vegetables on hill slopes and then cook them with preserved meat left by my mother. We turn to neighbors if we have any problems.”
Every month, Wang’s parents send home 20 yuan (US$3.20) — enough to cover basic sustenance.
Psychologists in China have warned that children left behind are at risk of developing mental and emotional problems.
“Last year, I found that some of the left-behind children were too introverted to talk with people,” said Zhou Jiyou, president of Bowei Environment. “What’s worse, they didn’t understand why their parents had ‘abandoned’ them.”
As a result, Zhou extended the length of the summer camp this year.
“Street cleaners work on shifts from 4am to 10:30pm, which might mean leaving their children alone in their rented Hangzhou accommodation,” said Zhou. “The camp helps take care of them when their parents are at work.”
The camp also schedules days when children can go to work with their parents to see what they do to earn money.
Zhou’s company has 560 workers and 90 percent of them come from Guizhou, Jiangxi and Anhui regions. Many of the workers can’t afford to go home, even during the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Beside psychological problems, these children often are victims of more serious tragedies.
“In the last few years, two workers’ children left alone in hometowns without any adult supervision died of drowning,” Zhou said.
Earlier this month, two children were murdered in their home in Guizhou. In June, four left-behind children aged 5 to 13, died after drinking pesticide. Three years ago, five children died of carbon monoxide poisoning when burning charcoal for warmth in a roadside dumpster.
Governmental departments like the police and fire brigade give classes in the Hangzhou summer camp, teaching the children how to protect themselves from danger.
“The purpose of this summer camp is not to teach book knowledge but survival techniques,” said Yao Yunlei, a volunteer from Zhejiang University City College who works at the camp. “There is a big educational gap between the poverty-stricken areas where these children come from and what we have here in Hangzhou.”
Hangzhou authorities have invested money to establish schools for migrant children who come to live with their parents, but many people can’t afford to bring their children with them.
Zhou said more companies are exploring the idea of holding summer camps that allow family reunions. He said it costs Bowei Environment 120,000 yuan to hold the summer camp.
The camp will be continued next summer, he added.
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