We often become so deeply involved in managing our daily affairs and trying to advance our own positions in the world that we forget how easy and rewarding it can be to create a new and enriching experience for people less fortunate than ourselves.

This past Saturday Village Progress teamed up with Heart to Heart Community Care, TNS, and the Where There be Dragons Princeton Bridge Year Program to take a group of kids hiking in Kunming’s Western Hills, a new experience to which they would not otherwise have access.

We spent a great afternoon with students from a migrant school in Kunming, Yanhuang school, participating in fun, physically challenging activities! Village Progress is working together with The Nature School (TNS) on projects to organize experiential learning activities for groups of students from underprivileged schools in Kunming. Our mission with these activities is to make the students aware of the value of physical exercise and good nutrition, and instill in them a sense of environmental awareness. 

What we call the "first stage", or first project, of two or three projects is helping make students not only aware of the value of physical exercise but also find it fun. Little Donkey, the owner of (TNS), sets the pace with some warming up exercises, correcting the positions of the students and reminding them what parts of the body they aimed at working at that day, then briefly explaining to the students the equipment that they'll be using, guiding students through rock climbing phase, and then ending it with a bit of rappelling. 

Since our group of students ranged from ages 6 to 13 years of age we divided them into activities with different levels of difficulty. The youngest climbed in the beginners rock climbing wall, while the oldest started in intermediate, a bit more challenging, parts of the wall. Just a little while after we begin, however, both the younger and older students had gotten the hang of it and were excitedly waiting for their turns again! When it came to rappelling, almost all the kids had lost their original fear and enthusiastically rappelled down waving down to their classmates.

As much as Village Progress would like to share these experiences with every migrant child in Kunming, we only have the resources to work with small groups at a time. Picking 15 students is not always easy. Fortunately, in this case, Village Progress already had a relationship with these students. These 15 students all belong to the same English corner group, which Village Progress has been taking part in.  We thought it would be more effective to work with them despite the age disparity. These students saw the trip as a continuation of the lesson outside the classroom, which gave them more context to continue applying what they learned. We're excited for stage 2 of our experiential learning projects!