Miss Becky's Blog

The SUNSHINE Project

The SUNSHINE Project:

Purpose: To bring SUNSHINE (light, warmth, happiness, hope and love) into the lives of poor deaf Chinese students by sharing our friendship, love and resources to help them gain education and training to become positive, happy, contributing members of society.

How we bring SUNSHINE to students of the Gao Chun Long Xiao School:

1. Provide money to pay the tuition and fees for poor students who can not afford to attend the school.

2. Purchase needed teaching equipment, such as scanners and printers for their computers, projectors to use in the classroom, etc.

3. NJU teachers and students will carry out a variety of fieldtrips and activities at the school with the children, sharing love, fun and friendship.

Two of the oldest and most accomplished deaf students at Gao Chun Long Xiao School. They met our van and escorted and hosted us each time we came to their campus.

How the Project began:

NanJing University students who were members of Miss Becky’s 4-H Club, fall semester 2002, started the project at Christmas time in December, by collecting money at the Christmas party to help poor children get more education. Miss Becky invited some other American BYU teachers and NJU teachers to participate. With some very generous donations, we soon had over 8,000RMB.

Through the efforts of Hua Weina and Gao Fenghua, two NJU Teachers, the Gao Chun Long Xiao and Nie Shlui Pei Zhi Xue Xiao schools were identified as needing help and were close enough to NanJing to allow our students to visit and interact with the deaf students.

A visit was made to the school, by American and Chinese teachers, to find out their needs.

Becky Mitchell and JoAn Criddle, BYU English Teachers (2002-2003) on their first visit to Gao Chun Long Xiao.

Gao Chun Long Xiao is a very excellent school, with young dedicated teachers, fair facilities and positive environment. It’s a boarding school with children from pre-school to grade nine. All the students have hearing disabilities and are learning sign language. They are bright, happy children, who performed some dances for us. It’s wonderful for these students to attend this school where they have friends and can learn and be happy. It was sad, however, to learn that there are many other deaf children whose families do not have the money to pay the tuition and fees for them to attend. We also learned that they would really like to have more contact with the outside world – the children only go home two weekends a month.

Currently we are:

· Planning our first trip to the school with NJU students on Saturday, April 19th. We plan to tour the school, then take the youth on our bus for an trip to a nearby old Chinese town. We’ll have a picnic along the way, play games and have lots of fun.

· Inviting our friends and family members to contribute to the sponsorship of individual children who can not afford to attend the school. The cost for one year is about $175 or 1400RMB. We have already received commitments from Americans to pay for at least seven more children to attend the school.

· Purchasing a printer, scanner, opaque projector and screen to be used in their classes. Also getting some sign language books needed by one teacher.

· NJU teachers and students are organizing the project to continue after Miss Becky leaves NanJing at the end of this school year. She will continue to support the project from America.

If you are interested in sharing the SUNSHINE and participating in this project, contact Miss Becky at: missbecky@xmission.com

Share a little SUNSHINE with others!