A big day in Sun Village

Ribbon-cutting Ceremony at the Rainbow Children’s Center, Sun Village, Beijing, May 24, 2009.

Zhang Shuqin，Director，Beijing Sun Village Consultancy for Children Education

We come here today for the opening ceremony of a 300-square-meter activity center. A 300-square-meter room means virtually nothing compared with those high-rise buildings and tower blocks in big cities, but it means a new world for the children here. More importantly, it is built by our hearts.”

Children at the Sun Village are very happy with the upcoming International Children’s Day, as it means they will have a new room where they can play table tennis, practice dancing and do other kinds of exercises.

In 1995, with just 3,000 yuan (around US$450), Ms Zhang Shuqin, a first-class police commissioner, singlehandedly established the Sun Village – “a special family” - to raise underage children whose parents are imprisoned. Ms Zhang is known among the children as “Granny Zhang”.

From four-month-old infants to eighteen-year-old youngsters, children at the Sun Village come from diverse backgrounds. Those above six years old are sent to nearby schools. Inside the Sun Village’s big family, every 14 children make a smaller family – living in a 110-square-meter house, with proper bedrooms, guestrooms and bathrooms. A “mom”, who is usually a volunteer, takes care of the children’s everyday life, checks their homework and helps them to gain independence.

Over the past 14 years, with society’s assistance, Sun village raised over 2,000 such kids. It provided them a shelter, special and law education, psychological counseling, as well as vocational training. It is all to insure their equal opportunity of sound education and family just like their more advantaged peers. Some of these children get enrolled at colleges after finishing high school; some served as volunteers at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Currently, over 400 kids live in six Sun villages across China. They include: Shunyi in Beijing; Xi’an and Longxian County in Shaanxi province; Xinxiang city in Henan province; Jiujiang city in Jiangxi province; and Datong in Qinghai province.

Zhang Shuqin，Director，Beijing Sun Village Consultancy for Children Education

There are over 600,000 children like these in China. Efforts from the Sun Village and volunteers reach only a few kids. We need more people to devote themselves to this cause and help the kids get through their life difficulties. It does not cost much to donate food and stationeries, or even paying some of the children’s tuition fees. As the old saying goes, “Do not think any vice trivial, and so practice it; do not think any virtue trivial, and so neglect it”. This is not impossible. Everybody can help as long as they have the will. Only with even the smallest effort from each of us we can help all these children in need. So I hope, with the media coverage more attention could be brought to this special group, so collectively we can help change these children’s fate.