Sichuan Quake Relief (SQR)

Objective

To instill confidence-building athletic activities through a pilot scheme of small training sessions for groups of earthquake-affected children.

Description

Sessions focused on developing physical and hand-eye coordination, ball skills, team-playing abilities, and overall fitness levels. Full time SQR volunteer Cate Papez led five sports skills sessions with the 4- and 5-year old students at Guangji Di Kang Le Pre-school & Kindergarten and groups of Chengdu-based volunteers (foreign and Chinese). The sixty students were divided into two or three groups per session, and participated in outdoor games with the volunteers for 60 to 75 minutes per session. Outdoor games and activities included three main types of activities:

1. athletic endurance games such as “blob” or freeze tag, sharks and minnows, and red light vs. green light
2. hand-eye coordination activities such as ball toss, variations of bowling, and ball relays
3. oral comprehension exercises such as “Simon Says” and races in which you advance depending on identifying colors.

Each activity increased in level of complexity between sessions. For example, “Simon Says” was initially led by volunteers in Chinese, and the following week students in Chinese, eventually working towards being led by students in English. Ball toss progressed from a simple catch and toss exercise to relays and competitions. Endurance activities also increased in their required fitness levels, and the students have risen to the occasion. While many students required rest after a few minutes of exercise in the first weeks, they are able to compete in various running games without stopping.

Benefits

The students have shown improvement in their coordination skills and athletic endurance, but their most noticeable improvement is in their confidence and comprehension levels. The school’s headmaster, Ms. Kang, has commented: “The improvement of toddlers brought by the CSA activity is obvious … Students have become more outgoing than before (e.g. putting up hands to answer questions). They have become more confident and cooperative.” After the second session each student group greeted the volunteers with smiles and excitement for the activities to come. Students became more vocal and participatory, and seemed to greatly look forward to, and benefit from, the Chengdu Sports Aid sessions.

Potential for future activities

Chengdu Sports Aid has been well-received by both its participants and surrounding community members. Ms. Kang has expressed that there is greater community interest in future activities: “It would be great to expand CSA to the surrounding area. In fact, some surrounding kindergartens have asked whether they can have CSA in their kindergarten. Some of our graduated students would come back to our school if they can attend these activities.” As Sichuan Quake Relief’s Guangji Community Centre is completed, CSA has the potential to act as a method for building local relationships and further introducing the work and members of SQR to the Guangji community. Now that the community has been introduced, through the network of kindergarten staff and parents/guardians of the students, to the nature of the above scheme, future schemes along the same lines could be developed for older children that live in the surrounding, earthquake-affected area.

Budget summary