????Anna Zhao ????anna.whizh@yahoo.com ????AS director of the Shenzhen branch of the charitable Maitian Education Foundation, Shenzhen resident Deng Minghao helps local volunteers join service projects that improve children’s education in impoverished areas in Guangdong Province. ????He received significant inspiration for his work a few years ago, when the foundation built a multimedia reading room at a rural school in Luoding City, Guangdong. ????The new reading room inspired students and teachers and even caught the attention of adults who had attended the school as children. Several of those adults pooled their money to give the school a complete facelift, and later spent millions of yuan to build a road to the school from their nearby home village. ????Those events inspired Deng to continue and expand his career in charity. He’s most recently initiated the “Drawing Rainbows” program, which runs from this month through June and calls for equal educational opportunities for all children. ????An online message about the program that Deng wrote went viral on social media microblogs, in another example of how small efforts can snowball into larger things. ????It’s a pattern with which Deng is familiar — he knows a thing or two about starting from scratch. ????Humble beginnings ????Born into a poor family, Deng began doing farm work and household chores when he was in primary school. He said he didn’t have much fun in school, which he saw at that time as a duty until he was old enough to find a job in a city. When he was in junior three, he often argued with his parents and one night, Deng ran away from home with a few hundred yuan he had taken from his family. ????Life was tough after that decision. Deng did more jobs than he could count, working for restaurants, moving companies, an appliance shop, street vendors and more. ????He finally settled down in the tourism industry. At first he was only able to feed himself, but his finances gradually approved and, 10 years later, he had a solid amount of savings. ????Turning to charity ????With the money he had earned, Deng started getting involved in charity efforts in 1999. He began by making donations to mountainous areas in northern Guangdong Province with a few business partners. ????“Now, I think our donations then were randomly done and may not have been the correct way to help the intended people,” Deng reflected. “As we donated more, we found more questions springing up, with the stay-at-home children questions that can’t be solved simply through donations but involved complex social problems that were beyond the strength of individuals.” ????Deng said children in China’s rural countryside very often are discouraged from studies. Rural children can become entrenched with beliefs that education is impotent after seeing seniors graduate from secondary colleges with their parents’ hard-earned money only to live hand-to-mouth lives with low-paying jobs, while others who drop out of school at young ages live well-off lives. ????“I myself was a victim of the idea that study is useless, so I want to make up for my regrets through the children I help,” Deng said. ????Rural children can also believe, Deng said, that social inequalities such as the lack of education facilities in the countryside make it near-impossible for them to change their fate through education, especially when competing against urban children. ????“Rural children think their chances to enter a good college are slim and they find no fun in study,” Deng said. ????So he decided to do something for them. ????Deng learned from a CCTV program that a charity group called Gesanghua Education Aid was doing work in western China, and registered to be a volunteer. ????Deng said he was shocked to see many children, including some from families much poorer than his, persisting with their studies. He also said the volunteering spirit at Gesanghua influenced him very much. Deng said he was particularly impressed by a volunteer in her 40s, from Gansu Province, who distributed educational materials 48 weeks a year — non-stop — while working and taking care of her family and children. Deng said that was when he began to learn to split his time into three equal parts: family, job and charity. ????“I don’t want to be idolized for doing charity. Public-spirited people are ordinary human beings who also live normal lives,” he said. ????Helping others ????Deng said his experiences with Maitian have been a process of personal maturity in addition to helping other people. ????Some tough memories still sadden him. Once, he and fellow volunteers paid a second visit to a child whom they had helped two years ago in a remote place, and found that the 9-year-old girl, raised by a single parent, had dropped out of school and was herding sheep while taking care of her younger brother. ????She was skinny as a rail, Deng said, and wearing the same clothes that she had received two years ago. ????Deng said he tried to talk to her, but the girl remained expressionless and silent. ????“She probably understood that we couldn’t fix all her problems with our monetary aid. It was unlikely for her to return to school since she was a labor source for the family,” Deng said. ????But as he was about to leave in disappointment, the girl suddenly rushed to him, crying “I want to go to school!” with tears in her eyes. Deng said all the volunteers’ eyes immediately became brimmed with tears, as well. ????“Most of the time it is beyond the strength of a single charitable institution or individual to solve the problem. We hope our efforts bring more attention to the children and social phenomenon,” Deng said. ????Still growing ????Maitian continues to gain volunteers and experience in charity efforts. Deng said the foundation focuses on helping stay-at-home children in underdeveloped areas in Guangdong and migrant children in Shenzhen. ????“There is too much that needs to be done and we can only do well with intensive efforts. I don’t have much school education but my long-term experience enables me to lead other members,” Deng said. ????He visits children in places outside Shenzhen every year and said he still is overwhelmed by the experiences. ????“I want to thank the kids for giving me the chance to express my love,” he said. ????Deng has a family and often tells his daughter stories about charity work. His experiences also have enabled him to care more about his family, he said. ? ??? “I want to thank the kids for giving me the chance to express my love.” ??? — Deng Minghao, director of the Shenzhen branch of the charitable Maitian Education Foundation, which is engaged in improving children’s education in impoverished areas in Guangdong Province ? | 