Moments of The Contest

While supporting rural schools to carry out online teaching support, we learned that children in mountainous areas have few opportunities to show themselves. Speaking of education in the United States, there are all kinds of competitions, whether it is painting, sports, music, speech, etc., to give children the opportunity to show themselves, enhance their self-confidence, and inspire themselves to work hard to become better themselves. For rural children, even if there are such competitions in their areas, it is difficult for them to have a chance to achieve good results, because urban children have more educational resources and are more likely to achieve good results. However, if a competition is held for such a group, they will have the opportunity to win like the children in the city, gain honors and enhance their self-confidence, which will play a great role in promoting their growth and become a very unforgettable experience in their growth process.

After we communicated our ideas with our partner, Ulight Charity, they were very excited about our proposal, as they had hoped for a way for long to show the results of the online teaching support activities. After weeks of discussion, we reached a consensus on the content, method, time, scale, scope, etc. of the competition.

The topic of the contest is Little Inventor, which will stimulate children's enthusiasm for science and interest in invention and creation through Chinese and English speeches and hands-on operations.

The competition is divided into three stages: preliminary, rematch and final. In the preliminary stage, 360 students signed up for the competition. They came from more than 10 provinces and over 50 primary schools across the country and submitted their entries in the form of videos. We  gathered more than a dozen high school volunteers to conduct online tutoring for some of these young students to help them determine the content of their works and speeches. These volunteers communicated with them online every week to understand the progress of the preparation, helped modify the content of the speech, and improved the entries. A few weeks before the competition, they also helped the young kids rehearsal  to ensure the best results.

After the preliminary contestants submit their works, our volunteer group was responsible for scoring and commenting on the works of some participating groups, and finally selecting the winning students of the groups to advance to the rematch. For the 40 contestants who entered the rematch, we continued to tutor, optimize their content, correct their English grammar and pronunciation, modify their English speeches, coach them to speak confidently and fluently, and enhance the infectiousness and expressiveness of their speeches. The rematch was conducted through live video, and the judges scored on the spot and commented on the performance of each player.  After four days of intense competition, 16 players finally entered the national finals.

The national finals was held at the end of July in Shanghai, and a week-long summer camp with outstanding students from other projects. As a cooperative organization, three of our volunteers participated in this summer camp as team leaders. They led the young students of their respective teams to participate in the discussion, learn new knowledge and skills, practice, explore the city, raise funds through charity sales and prepare for performance. They also gave courses on environmental protection for all campers.

In the summer camp, many children left their parents for the first time. When they came to a big city like Shanghai, the volunteer leader not only took care of various activities during the day, but also cared about the children's life when they returned to the dormitory at night, communicated with them, shared their learning and life experience, and introduced what they have seen overseas, helped children enrich their knowledge and broaden their horizons. At the end of the summer camp, every camper missed our volunteers and the unforgettable experience brought to them. Their parents were also very grateful that we could organize such activities to give children such opportunities to contact the outside world, which has a very positive leading role in their future growth.

Through such activities, we realize that there are too many people in the world who need help, and there are so many ways to help them realize their dreams. We are very happy to be the initiators and participants of this activity, and to be a part of the change and contribute to the realization of many people's dreams.