247 graduate students of Fudan University have volunteered to teach the children in Xihaigu region (地区) of Ningxia for the past 22 years. The region used to be poor because of its terrible natural environment. “We expect to make a difference to the children’s life by sharing our knowledge (知识) in different fields,” one of the volunteers says.

The students have different abilities, so the volunteers have used different teaching methods to help them develop good study habits. “Local children had never learned English before, so we started with basic knowledge like English letters and pronunciation (发音),” says Li Lianshuo, a Fudan volunteer. The volunteers help the students remember English words, read articles and deal with their study problems.

“We visit the students’ homes in our free time. We communicate with their parents so that we help the parents understand the importance of children’s education, because the parents didn’t care much about it years ago,” explains Yang Chenhaotong, who was the leader of the volunteer team in 2019. According to Yang, the parents give their children a lot of support in their studies now.

The volunteers have helped the local children with their studies. They have also set up football clubs and held many ball games to make the children’s life colorful. Fudan University has also given away more than 10 million yuan to the region to build playgrounds (操场) and other buildings over the past 22 years.

“Thanks to my volunteer teacher, my life has changed a lot. I will study hard and become an excellent person like her,” Li Sumei, a local student, says excitedly.

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If (如果) you take the train to Kunming and don’t know how to get to the place you want to go, you can ask the two old grandpas for help. They are Old Xu and Old Zhou.

Old Xu is 80 years old. At eight o’clock every day, he gets to Kunming Train Station. He puts on his blue waistcoat (背心) and starts work—walking around and showing people the way (路). Old Xu works five to six hours a day and helps hundreds of people. He knows the bus routes (路线) in Kunming very well, so people call him “a walking map”.

Old Zhou is Old Xu’s “student”. He is 75 years old. He thinks Old Xu is doing a good job, so he comes to help him.

These days, the two grandpas are learning English. Why? They want to help foreigners. We must give them the thumbs-up (翘拇指)!