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My perspective changed after the school trip to China

My school trip to china changed my perception about life. It happened two years ago when my teacher, classmates and I boarded a plane to Chinas capital city, Beijing. The flight was slightly more than 13hrs 36min. On reaching Beijing, we boarded another plane to our destination Guizhou province, a journey that took as an additional 2hrs 30min. Guiyang is the capital city of Gauizhou. We were accommodated at the Novotel Guiyang Downtown hotel.

Gauizhou is one of China’s poorest provinces and has a population of approximately 3.45 million people, most of whom live below the poverty line. The World Bank describes three levels of poverty, ‘extreme poverty’; a household defined by income of less than a $1 a day. Next we have the ‘moderate poverty’; a household that is living on $1 to $2 a day. Lastly we have ‘relative poverty’; this is a household defined by earnings below a specific level of the average national earnings.

Most factories in this province disobey child labor laws. Children are employed to work for minimum wages. Those working in garment and textile factories often work for more than 14 hours a day the whole week and sleep by their machines. Boys in Qing Cheng Shan or the Green Mountain City are paid a wage of 18 cents to carry a 55 pound bag of coal up the mountain. Even in the main cities, school teachers who earn a salary of approximately $50 per month; good salary in China, may have to save up for two years to buy just a bicycle. Families are separated in opposite corners of the country so as to work in different areas to cater for their family’s needs. They only have three weeks in a year to be together. Poor families live in bamboo framed houses or houses made out of a combination of straw-and-mud. These houses are located in parts of Sichuan, Yunnan and Hunan provinces. Progress to them means, moving from a mud house to a concrete house. This made me appreciate the living conditions back at home, where water and electricity are a necessity. Here in the rural areas electricity is only found in towns and the factories that offer jobs. Water is found in bore holes dug years back, and it is the duty of children to fetch it and carry the filled containers back home. The children have to walk quite a distance because the bore holes are located far away from their houses.

After a long week, we were back to our normal lives, but what I saw there made me want to open my own orphanage to help the less fortunate. I approached my grandfather who runs an orphanage to volunteer. My grandfather; Mr. Saleh Kamei runs the Fair Heaven Children’s (FHC) home. It is located in 3139 N Fair Heaven Loop, Strafford MO 75757-8919. It is a residential care facility for kids in the state of Missouri. He started it back in the year 1997 after a trip to Africa which also changed his perspective about life. He initially wanted to go back to Africa to start it there but back home there was also a necessity for this kind of care.

It is now three years since my experience in China and my voluntarism at my grandfather’s orphanage. During the school holidays, my services are needed more. Every morning we serve the children with breakfast; a privilege their families never used to afford, then I offer my tutoring services. What I have learned from this experience influenced me to become more humbled to have been born into my family. I am grateful for my parents for giving me what I need without even asking for it. Just a smile on these children’s faces brightens my day and am grateful to God that my grandfather found it in his heart to help these beautiful children.