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As part of SQR’s on-going community development work in the Guangji area, regular, free activities for the local people of Shihe and other surrounding villages of Guangji are underway at our Di Kang Le Community Centre.
- Villagers young and old have packed out the centre to standing-room-only capacity to enjoy recent popular Chinese films such as Aftershock and The Love of the Hawthorn Tree, with snacks and tea provided. Movie-watching is very much a social activity here, with lively discussions about both the on-screen events and all manner of other topics going on while the action plays out.
- As well as these popular, regular, entertainment-based movie nights, a series of educational and documentary films will be shown. These films describe, for example, improved farming techniques and best practices, aiming to help this agricultural community further develop its efficiency and productivity.
- Another successful series of events has been the karaoke evenings, bringing the very popular pastime of China’s urban dwellers to the villages of Guangji.
- A newly-formed local youth-support group will hold weekend activities for local schoolchildren, such as calligraphy practice club and a reading group, to provide an alternative to comic books and computer games.
- Seniors make up a large proportion of the local population, and as well as taking part in the above activities, are able to enjoy specially-targetted events. The centre provides a warm, safe, comfortable meeting place for informal gatherings to play chess, go (weiqi), or simply chat over a flask of tea.
In addition, CSA has been running more skills-development sessions at Guangji Elementary School. The area has no public park areas in which local children could play after school or at weekends, so in cooperation with the school staff, CSA has engaged a group of forty Grade 5 (age 11-12) students in a variety of structured Saturday afternoon sports-based activities quite different from their usual PE lessons. In the past few weeks, Chinese and foreign volunteers have travelled the two hours’ drive from Chengdu to put the children through their paces with focussed lessons on football (soccer), dodgeball, and ultimate frisbee, all with an added element of English-learning.
The sessions will be expanded in the coming weeks along the lines of SQR’s very successful 2009 SAME Camps, with future activities based on arts and music for rotating groups of students. If you are interested in taking part in these sessions, please email csa@sichuan-quake-relief.org. Details of future sessions, and other planned activities at the community centre, can be found on our events page.