Six volunteers from CAI, an NGO that provides art and sports training to underprivileged children, concluded a basketball workshop in Dongba Shiyan School, Chaoyang District, last Saturday.
The all-female group of 24 teenagers from migrant workers’ families was taught the sport’s basic skills – dribbling, passing and shooting – as well as its rules. The eightk training program included games to build teamwork, trust, confidence and communication skills.
At the end of the workshop, the students were asked to write a journal entry about their experience and impressions of the program. These help trainers keep track of the children’s development and are used to evaluate the training’s impactOne of the participants, Yuan Siqi, 12, did not care about basketball before she joined the workshop. “But since I became a basketball team member under CAI’s training project, I fell in love with the sport,” she said. “The teachers from CAI are very charming, and their lively teaching methods make the training.”Zhu Minghui, 13, was interested in the sport but had little chance to learn it because it was regarded as a “boy’s game,” and players she knew refused to allow females to join them. “Fortunately, CAI’s projas only for girls,” she said. “I learned not only technical skills but also how to work with teammates.By conducting basketball workshops exclusively for girls, CAI seeks to reduce gender inequality that is more acutely felt by the underprivileged. “The program has so far been very successful, and there is strong demand from migrants schools,” said Ellen Luo, the NGO’s program coordinatoYang Qin, Dongba Shiyan School’s principal, said the project has brought a lot of benefits to their students. “Most migrant workers’ children have little chance to interact with the outside world compared with city children,” hid. “CAI’s volunteers not only bring joy to the children but also teach them how to face difficulties and develop a positive outlook on life through sports and games. What’s more, they help improve our teachers’lls through exchanges.”Due to lack of funds, the physical education program of schools for migrant workers’ children is poor. “Most PE teachers in such schools have never received professional training, so they dot know how to teach students effectively. They usually only do simple exercises like running, jumping and skipping rope in physical education class,” sid Xu Weixu, 31, a CAI volunteer from Tsinghua University.
