The afternoon of March 14 was cold and rainy, but there was a very warm atmosphere flying around the big classroom at the Aider migrant kindergarten, which is located in Qingpu Baihe Town. More than 35 migrant children and most of their mothers and grandmothers and also a few dads, gathered there, waiting for a foreign English teaching volunteers association's arrival. Some of them came to the kindergarten at 2pm, even though some of the parents are very busy they still take the time to send their children to school, and then go home to take care of other children or continue to work. In order to support this first English teaching activity, the school principals and teachers volunteered to work overtime to take care of the children and parents.
At 3:15pm, Shanghai’s Italy women's community volunteer adults and children people came to the kindergarten to run the activity. Although it was raining and they were not familiar with the route, they still tried to arrive on time. They brought with them their personally designed English lessons, teaching materials, and handmade exquisite Italian cake. Once they entered into the classroom, the kids, their parents and teachers welcomed them with applause.
The volunteers them in English and the kids were cheered up by the volunteers’ enthusiasm. The volunteers taught the group numbers, songs in English, they also played a color filling game with the kids to strengthen their knowledge of English numbers. Not only did the children and their parents learn something new, but even the teachers were all attracted by the fresh and amusing way of learning and actively participated. One of the teachers was very excited and interacted with the volunteers happily.
All the participants were enjoying the fabulous handmade Italian cake.
The leading volunteer Ms. Simona’s little daughter was so cute and spoke good Chinese. Many of the kindergarten’s teachers played with her and found a lovely year of Goat toy for her to play with. The considerate volunteers’ also prepared little bags of stationary gifts for the migrant children. They looked forward to come back again in April. All participants had great fun during the Saturday afternoon activities.

At 11:30am on March 15th 2015, a group of Swedish volunteers from a charity drama organization arrived Youdao’s Qingpu Children’s activity center for a performance. They checked the site, set up the stage, and put on their make up. The local security guard, Mr. Xie helped a lot in the events setup by picking up the volunteers, moving the material, and resolving a wiring issue.
The migrant children and some neighbors sat down with three university volunteers to enjoy the show.
There were not as many children at the performance due to cold weather, but this did not affect the performers at all, who still devoted themselves and performed with the highest level of enthusiasm. Although the performers only wore shirts, they still sweat a lot during the playing.
Their funny, lovely, and humorous gestures and facial expressions made the audience laugh loudly.
When the play came to the end, the audience cheered and applauded the performers. They also spent some time teaching the kids different dances. It was a great moment for everyone involved.
Even the show ended, the children were still curious about the stage and props. They couldn’t control the props but touched them with their little figures. They asked the performers to dance with them again and took pictures with them.
A special thanks to Maja and her team (Wang Jiannan, Liu Siyu, and Björn Dahlman) for their great performance for the children. They have their full time job, so they have to sacrifice lots of their spare time to design the drama, practice, and prepare materials. They then spend their weekends giving performances to migrant children. They told us that they always feel a great sense of pleasure and satisfaction when they see the kids’ happy and cheering faces.