AROUND 81 students and teachers from Shenzhen University (SZU) helped build eight new village libraries in four provinces and autonomous regions this summer under a charity program.
The libraries in Yunnan, Tibet, Guangxi, Jiangxi feature a collection with 9,000 books in total.
The charity program, launched in 2018, is committed to promoting reading among children living in the country’s rural areas. It aims to build effective charity cultural platforms connecting resources from urban and rural areas to invoke children’s reading interests and help cultivate their reading habits. The program is also a response to the country’s poverty alleviation campaign and rural revitalization strategy.
Nan Mingqin, curator of one of the eight new libraries in the city of Baoshan in Yunnan, said that with the library, children and villagers now have a place to read and learn.
As of now, SZU has built 31 charity libraries to serve over 6,000 children in rural areas.
During this summer holiday, teachers and students also held three-week-long summer reading camp events at 12 charity libraries, with over 400 children participating.
At a reading camp held in Yunnan, student volunteers organized children to rehearse the famous English children’s story – “Little Red Riding Hood” – as a drama, to let them get immersed in the scenes and feel the charm of the language.
（Shenzhen Daily Wang Jingli)
