I feel lucky to have been born as me. Many babies come into this world with much less going for them. Today, the high school students in our group volunteered with two groups of youth.
In the morning, we worked at Bethel, a foster home for orphans with vision impairment. We worked in a classroom with students who suffered from an additional challenge: Autism. So that means that these kids had three major issues: 1) being blind, 2) being Autistic (many quite severe), and 3) not having parents caring for them. It’s hard to imagine how hard this must be, but these kids are lucky to have the caretakers at Bethel to support their needs. Here’s a little video that shows our students working with the Autistic blind population. As you can see, many of them aren’t very verbal and probably wouldn’t be able to attend a regular school even if they could see.
In the afternoon, we volunteered at a school for children of migrant workers. Under China’s Hukou system, if a person moves cities to work away from their home town, they don’t have rights to the public services in that new place. For example, they can’t send their kids to school or get health care because they are entitled to those services back home. This is a huge problem for many people, because Beijing has millions of migrant workers who come to the city to get jobs. 
There are special schools set up for these kids, because otherwise they would not be able to get any education. Our students are working on painting the walls of one of these schools, alongside the students. As you can see in the photos, these children are really warm, wonderful souls. They really loved meeting the foreign high school students and getting a different experience for their summer vacation. In many ways, both sets of children were just like any other kids I’ve worked with.
Categories: China
Innovation on Earth 
Whoa.
I feel really bad for the children at Bethel. But at least they seem to be having fun in the video!! I feel lucky to be born as me too. I hope the children there will have a better future.
I feel just as bad for the migrant workers and their families that come with them. Why can’t they just help them, for goodness sake? But I’m glad that there’s at least some schools for the children of the migrant workers. But are there only schools for migrant workers’ families? Or are there some other special places for them? Maybe in the future, the migrant workers who go to China will be able to use the public services for their new home.
What about Mr. Banaszewski? Is he okay? For the Hukou System, does it mean if someone moves from someplace like Austrailia or the U.S.A. they can’t use the public services? Or does it mean if someone goes from one China city to another China city?
I like the last picture, it’s funny! 🙂
Best Wishes!!
😉 ~ Anna
I do feel bad for them for an extent, but really I think we shouldn’t. They are happy and as long as they don’t hear other people talk about how they are missing out, they won’t know they are missing out! What one has never known one can not miss what they don’t know. They just make-do like other people. I’m not saying they shouldn’t know what the world is like, but that they can’t miss what they never had. In my opinion, if I were blind, I wouldn’t want everybody saying “i’m sorry for you” or “if only you could see”. It would just make me want to see more! That is just for the blind part though. As for being autistic, instead of being sorry for them (although I do..) lets help them and make their life better! I do feel very bad for them being orphaned. Having people to love and care for you is irreplaceable. I’m sure they do have love and care.. but in some way It doesn’t seem the same as having parents.
That IS REALLY sad. Some people here think they have it bad off. Those kids are blind, autistic, and parent-less!
I feel so bad for those kids. Some of then are adorable. At least they get a education.
That was really nice of the high school students to do that for them<[:)