February 2013

MEET: Li Yuyin (Maggie)

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Li Yuyin (Maggie) is the newest addition to our CWEF team. She serves as education director in CWEF China’s Kunming office.

Maggie is responsible for working with various government and school partners in Yunnan province to facilitate CWEF’s education programs. Her responsibilities include connecting with current scholarship students, helping to select future recipients, coordinating and executing the REACH program, and hosting service learning teams focused on teaching.

Maggie’s background in non-profit and education-related work is extensive and spans the globe. Most recently Maggie volunteered with World Vision and provided translation services part-time. Maggie has additional experience translating for a Chinese government aid organization in Ethiopia and working for Christopher Blind Mission (a German non-profit).

Maggie grew up in southern Yunnan and attended university in Kunming, graduating with a degree in English teaching. She put her degree to good use in local secondary schools as a teacher for eight years. As she settles into her new position, Maggie is excited to put her experience and knowledge of the Chinese education system to work with CWEF. She shares, “I want to contribute to this position and improve upon our work so we can help the most students.” We are excited to welcome Maggie!

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Animals for Widows | Wheat Ridge

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CWEF began partnering with Wheat Ridge in 2010, to provide animal gifts to a specific group of women who needed supplemental income and aid. We are so thankful for their partnership. Below is a final report done by the group looking back over the project and its goals.

“The project leaders began with an ambitious and clear plan to provide hope and health to Cambodian widows through gifts of animals. The plan included provisions for sustainability of the project beyond the grant term, and was formulated based on a similar successful chicken gifting project in the area. Animals for Widows aimed to gift 40 women with animals in its first year to help increase their income and improve their family’s overall health and life situation. Plans were made to ensure that the widows who received the first 40 gift animals would be able to pass along the next generation of animals to another 40 widows in the second year.

The project leaders formed an outcomes measurement plan at the beginning of the project and continued to use it throughout the grant term. The three outcomes for the project were:

1. Establish and train a local animal program committee for each gift community,

2. Increase the income of 40 widows by $25/month within 6 months of their animal gift, and

3. Ensure project sustainability by implementing plans to gift the next generation of animals to 40 additional widows within one year of the initial gifts.

Semi-annual visits were made to the women who received animals. During these visits it was determined if additional training was needed as well as the impact of the animals on the lives of the women and their families. If there was a change in the women’s lives or the animal(s) had died from disease, the women contacted their local leaders who in turn contacted the project coordinators.

The project made significant progress on all three outcomes. The local animal program committee was established and trained on how to select and give animals to eligible women. However, there were issues with ensuring that all recipients met the eligibility requirements of the program. Leaders have since resolved these issues and have measures in place to ensure that only those women who are eligible will be properly identified and receive gifts in the future. As of this writing, 31 widows have received animals, and staff is working to identify nine more eligible recipients to reach the goal of 40 widows receiving animals.”

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Teachers put the ‘A’ in REACH

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The report card is in and Guangdong Province’s REACH volunteer teachers get an ‘A’!  These hard-working teachers put the “A” in Advocacy. They are the core of CWEF’s REACH (Resiliency Education: Advocacy, Collaboration & Hope) program.

What happens when these teachers get together for a retreat? Team-building, mountain-climbing, and a new outlook for REACH’s curriculum. This January, teachers from REACH partner schools in Guangdong province gathered for a two-day retreat in Renhua, Shaoguan, Guangdong led by CWEF’s Dolphin Liu and Lynn Lin.

To kick off their time together, teachers from the different schools got to know one another better by participating in some of the team-building activities which they use with their students! During the retreat REACH teachers also shared experiences, advice, struggles, and activities with one another and CWEF staff in order to enrich the program for the benefit of the participating students.

One teacher shared, “Many students want to join the class. The students were very engaged and involved in the activities. They showed creativity and enthusiasm in the activities, especially when we played games such as ‘guessing emotions’.” Not only did the teachers share their experiences and class ideas with one another, but they also went on an outing to Danxia Mountain for some fresh air and relaxation. CWEF staff enjoyed this special time talking with these kind-hearted teachers.

A main goal of REACH is to involve local teachers who will then cultivate meaningful relationships with students and instill in them hope and confidence for life that traditional subjects and college entrance exam preparation do not cover. This past semester, topics covered in REACH classes included: team work, emotion management, communication skills, and self-image. While at the retreat, teachers shared these student comments on the semester’s topics:

• Team work:

“Before I thought group members caring for each other and helping each other was something that happened only on TV and not in real life. Now, I am so lucky to be a part of a team. I know that working as a team is very powerful; everyone has a good heart, and we can work together to solve our problems and create a miracle.”

• Emotion Management:

“Everyone will have time to be sad and down and we have to develop a good way to manage our feelings. We have to think, ‘Calm down. Why do I have this unhappy emotion? Why am I stressed? How can I solve this problem?’ Then, we can be more effective to adjust our emotion and keep a positive attitude to face our life.”

• Communication skills:

“Now I know how to make friends with others. I know how to better understand what others say. For example, during communication you should listen carefully to understand others meaning well, but we also need to make sure we totally understand—we should not just hear the words they say; you should LISTEN to what they say and understand the purpose.”

• Self-Image:

“Image can be inside and outside. We can learn and educate ourselves. Our image being good or bad should not depend on others’ opinions or how I feel sometimes. Now we know how we can know more about ourselves and what is a good or bad self-image so that we keep the good things in mind, and improve the bad things so they become better and better.”

Oh yeah, and the students give their teachers an ‘A’ too!

“I would like to say thank you to CLA teachers. You spend a lot of time with us and when I see your happy face I also feel happy.” – REACH Student

 

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Hand in Hand

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This is an interview with American International School of Guangzhou teacher Eric R Little, who has led several groups of his students on trips to work with CWEF scholarship girls. They are planning another trip for later this spring.

How did you hear about CWEF/begin volunteering?  “We heard about the program at a Global Issues Network conference at the Chinese International School in Hong Kong. We contacted HKIS and then invited Dolphin and the director at the time to come to talk to us.”

You have now been on 4 trips personally; what keeps you coming back? “I love the fact that we can actually get to know personally the people we are helping. The girls are wonderful and it always motivates us to return and work hard to find more sponsors.”

Do you feel a relationship is being built between the students of AISG and those of Renhua Middle School?   “Yes, definitely. It is still a little difficult to maintain contact between visits, but this is mostly because the girls at  Renhua do not have regular access to email etc. But I regularly get letters from the girls for our students and I have known all of them since or work with the program began three years ago.”

Are there any moments from your time volunteering with CWEF that stick out to you?  “The visits to a few of the girl’s homes stick out. It is a good reminder of how much they really need our help. Also, all of the goodbye’s. There are so many hugs, smiles and tears between the two groups of students from ‘different worlds.’ They build such a bond in less than 24 hours!”

How have these trips enhanced the overall educational experience of your students? “Our students live in China, many for many years, but they don’t live in the ‘real China.’ They live in a privileged bubble. This is a great opportunity for them to meet people who are not privileged and to get a sense of the reality in China. It also is a wonderful opportunity for our students to develop leadership and interpersonal skills. This is very much a student-organized and led project. Although it might be more efficient at times if I do things for them, they would not learn or grow so much.”

Do you have any ideas for future relationship-building with Renhua students?  “I would love for all of the Renhua girls to visit Guangzhou, come to the school and attend classes on Friday, see Guangzhou, maybe visit a university and/or meet with a female business or community leader who is a successful role-model for them.”

 

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