Community Center Approach
The Vision for the Community Center Approach
The migrant communities of China are not unlike those of other cities around the world. They are groups of people who often have little in common apart from their shared poverty and subsequent drive to improve the quality of life for their family. In the midst of this fractured and sometimes bruised section of society where it’s every person for himself, there is room for a call to cohesion and opportunity for true community.
Compassion for Migrant Children’s model of the Migrant Community Learning Center is one workable answer to this situation. We have seen these community centers serve as the framework which provides the stability within which migrant families can build the intangible aspects that make a community thrive and mature. The centers become places of collaboration, creativity, and mediation as migrant children, parents, and teachers come together to move towards places of greater hope.
While we were gaining experience with our first migrant community center, CMC has been listening, watching and learning as we launch the new community center model which we plan to spread throughout Beijing and into other cities of China. We have learned that the children we are working with are not just a faceless mass of humanity but instead are Xiao Mei, Yuan Yuan, and Yi Cong. While we are working to empower positive shifts in communities and cities, our day-to-day work is with these individual precious lives. Yet we have learned that as these individuals share similar opportunities, challenges, and dreams, their lives become intertwined into a community as a whole, banding people together who otherwise have very different stories.
Compassion for Migrant Children is pouring its programs in and around the community centers, creating an active hub of change in migrant communities. During the days, older migrant youth attend a six month Life-Vocational Skills Training Program and then as they move out in the early evenings, children from the surrounding unlicensed migrant schools pour in to attend the two hour After School Program where they are tutored and take part in activities which foster creativity. Teacher Training for the migrant schoolteachers and Family Workshops for the parents and their children are conducted at the centers on the weekends.
It would be great if tomorrow every father found a good job, every child was given the best that education can offer, and every family had the tools to build a healthy environment at home. But this won’t happen tomorrow and probably not even this year.
Before these tangible benefits can be achieved, there will be a shift away from the discrimination towards the migrants that have effectively turned them into second-class citizens in this country of hope. We not only work for immediate change but also for a vision in which future generations of children are assimilated into all the best Chinese society has to offer. Though a migrant child may be born into poverty, they have the right to not feel the intense sting of the stigma accompanying this poverty. We can observe from human nature at a micro level that when we walk into a roomful of people and show honor to the one being ignored, this causes others to begin valuing this person as well. We trust that our efforts of valuing each member of Chinese society may play a small role in encouraging the public of China to also place greater value on their fellow citizens. There is room for a brighter future around the corner.
Life-Vocational Skills
The Life-Vocational Skills Training program for older migrant youth is the first among three core pillar programs of the Community Learning Center model for migrant communities. It provides both life skills, vocational skills, and technical skills to 16-20 year olds to empower them to make the most of their future as they adjust to urban life. The technical skill certificate they earn will get them a job for tomorrow, the vocational skills they absorb will help them succeed in this job and the life skills will benefit them the rest of their lives as they come to grips with what it means to adapt and assimilate to a newer and faster world in the cities.
240 migrant youth are trained every year at each CMC center.
After School Program
As the youth in the LVS program leave the center in the late afternoon, migrant children from the surrounding migrant schools pour into the center to take part in the two-hour After School Program. The center provides a creative and healthy environment for the children as an alternative to playing in the alleyways after school. They are tutored in their homework by Chinese university students for the first hour and then they have the choice in the second hour of which activity they would like to attend. Arts and crafts, computer, sports, reading, and drama are taught by the volunteers.
Over time, the children grow in their understanding of healthy interpersonal relationships, teamwork, and values such as honesty, respect and love. These children see that a future and a hope are within their grasp and we value working through this process with them.
300-500 migrant children regularly attend the After School Program every year at each CMC center.
Teacher Training
The quality of teaching in migrant schools remains an issue of great concern as the teachers are often unqualified or inexperienced to teach the migrant children. Up to 65% of migrant teachers have no prior teaching experience before entering their new careers to guide the children in their education.
CMC focuses on the less tangible aspects of teaching. We concentrate our training on two areas, the teacher-student relationship and introducing a more creative and interactive approach to the classroom. Much of the students’ opportunity for future education depends on the nurturing environment they receive in their younger years and CMC strives to make sure they receive as much nurture as possible.
120 migrant teachers are trained every year at each CMC center.
Three Pillar Programs in the Community Center Model
Life-Vocational Skills | After School Program | Teacher Training |
A Typical Day at a CMC Migrant Community Center
09 AM Life-Vocational Skills training program for 16-20 year olds
11 AM Early childhood development seminar for migrant mothers
03 PM After School Programs for children of all ages
05 PM Migrant teacher training workshop
07 PM Migrant family development seminar
See 3 year goals for the community center model in Beijing
