Student Volunteer Work in China
Student Volunteer Work in China
Kevin Slaten, a graduate student in DEALL’s MA in Advanced Chinese Language and Culture program, has been reported widely in recent months in China as a "a foreign Lei Feng in Qingdao 青岛洋雷锋” for his volunteer work in providing precious educational and cultural experiences for the less privileged migration workers’ children in the Qingdao area. (Lei Feng was a PLA soldier promoted in the 60s’ as a symbolic figure for volunteerism.) Kevin is currently spending a year in Qingdao, interning with the New Citizen’s Home Workers Union 新市民之家工会 and conducting research for his Master's thesis titled “The Collective Consciousness of the New Generation of Migration Workers: Qingdao 2012.” Started in June 2011, Kevin and a group of students from the Level 6 class in OSU Qingdao Summer Intensive Program initiated a community service project aiming to provide free classes, such as English, music and martial arts, for the local migration workers’ children who would otherwise be left out because of their families’ very limited financial means and because of their hybrid social status (peasants living in the cities) made them difficult to be covered by the current education system. When most students left Qingdao after summer for their respective internship sites across China, Kevin, with the help of his fiancée, has been continuing the volunteer work, which has now left a great and positive impact on the local community and the life of so many children. Chinese media described Kevin as a Lei Feng with “golden hairs” whose volunteer work warmed the hearts of the children as well as their parents. Below are the links to some of the Chinese reports:
http://qd.wenming.cn/tt/201203/t20120308_184023.html
