Summer Camp of "Weaving Wings for Dreams and Growing Happily" for Primary and Secondary School Students Held in the "Practice and Training Base of Social Work Education's Involvement in Poverty Alleviation" of SSDPP



From the end of June to the beginning of July in 2020, five postgraduate students (Wang Hua, Yang Yujing, Li Jing, Zhao Rui and Zheng Miao) of social work major who admitted to SSDPP in 2019 voluntarily came to SSDPP's "practice and training base of social work education's involvement in poverty alleviation" - Yichuan County, Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province for internship, working as village-stationed social workers in Gaowan Village. After nearly one month's visit, they have established a professional relationship with the local villagers and learned more about the needs of the villagers and their families. Taking into account the geographical location, transportation and education level gap of the village, they have designed two distinctive summer camps for primary and secondary school students in Gaowan Village. The first summer camp was held in Sanjiao Group site, with 25 children signing up; the second was held in Gaowan Village site, with 39 campers, including children from neighboring counties and townships. Each summer camp last 13 days.

Group photo of interns, campers and volunteers in the first summer camp

Group photo of interns, campers, village cadres, poverty alleviation cadres and volunteers in the second summer camp

The summer camp activities mainly include language training, capacity building and homework guidance. Language training aims to improve children's language thinking ability and self-efficacy so that they can learn English in communication; capacity building aims to cultivate children's interest, improve their social skills and sense of teamwork so that each child can play his unique role in activities so as to improve their comprehensive quality and ability; homework guidance not only relieves parents' anxiety of tutoring children's learning, but also provides a platform for children to ask questions.

SSDPP's students tutoring the children of the village in oral English 

Campers participate in capacity building activities

At the same time, our interns provided social work services for children with special needs in the summer camps with their professional knowledge, and helped the children solve problems in the process of learning, interpersonal communication and self-awareness, integrating social work with education-based poverty alleviation to contribute to poverty reduction.

The two summer camps were both funded by SSDPP and guided by our teachers. With the joint efforts of our teachers and students, the summer camp of "weaving wings for dreams and growing up happily" was successfully completed at the end of August, and won high praise from campers and their parents. We hope that the summer camp next year will be held as scheduled.