Youth Camp is part of the education program of HIS Foundation. It provides a week long recreational and educational program for 50 high school students who are currently receiving our scholarships. These are poor students from rural area with good academic standing.

Feedback from Students
“ I learnt that being thankful is very important in life. I am thankful for all our teachers came so far from different parts of the world to teach and share with us. Thank you. “ 

“ In the beginning of the camp I was still troubled by the tension of study and life. However through the activities of the youth camp I felt relief and I could enjoy life again. “ 

“ What we learnt in this five short days seems to be more than what we learnt in school for the past 10 years, much more. We really benefit a lot. “ 

“ In this youth camp, we are like a family and the walls between us broke down. We talk and laugh together. We climb the mountain and labor together. We encourage each other. We watch the beautiful scenery together. We grow together in face of adversaries. “ 

Impact of Donation
HIS Foundation high school scholarship program provides an unique opportunity for poor students from rural area to continue their education. The annual Youth Camp is part of the HIS Foundation education program that allows our scholarship students to attend and learn various life skills such as team building, sharing, planning and execution. It is very beneficial for character building. Most students have never attended similar activities before. The positive impact on students can be long lasting.

The Bird Home is in Xi’an, Shan’xi province. They provides services for the mentally handicapped from poverty-stricken families. The organization is dedicated to improving their spirit and living standards and advocating for every disabled individual to have adequate access to social resources.

There are two festivals that they celebrate in China in early June, one is Children’s Day and the other is Dragon Boat festival.  These are the favorite festivals of many of the children at Bird's Home. They immerse themselves in the blessings from those around them,  and fill themselves with delicious rice dumplings and other treats. These holidays are filled with joy and easy to celebrate with a large group. This year at Bird Home, many volunteers and caring people donated delicious rice dumplings, milk, eggs, and other nutritional supplements to children through our charity organization. We feel a strong sense of friendship and support from our community!  

During the festivals, we went to the “Little Swallow Pagoda" and celebrated the festivals with volunteers and caring people from various communities. The children practiced and performed songs and dances for the public and were greeted with warmth and encouragements. You can tell from their expression how happy they were. All this attention made them feel they are no longer alone. After the show, teachers and drum band members were invited to enjoy a sumptuous Dragon Boat Festival feast. 

It was also the same for “6/1” Children’s Day. So many kind people from the community were able to express their concern and love for these children in different ways.  It was very inspiring event overall and we all had a great time. We had a lot of joy this summer. There is a strong stigma against mentally disabled, but you wouldn't feel it at the Bird Home. We've received so much public support and love. These are the moments that cannot be quantified. 

Original article written by Zhaohao Feng, translated by Joe Hsu, edited by Yanyan Zhang

Clover Youth was initiated by the high school graduates, who are dedicated to create learning opportunities via practice and social environment led by youth peers, cultivating youth with love, ideas and action. It is located in Guangzhou city.

"What do you think life is like as a chef?" A question posted to ChunHua school students by the host at the very beginning of the lecture. 

Following last week's Chef class sponsored by Green Grass Weekend Camp, a subsequent class on Chef’s Expertise started in the afternoon of the 25th  at ChunHua school. Comparing to the first class which focused on hands-on in cake baking, this second class focused on the expertise, knowledge relevant to a professional chef.   The goal is to increase students' interest and understanding of the profession of chef through these lessons and activities

"The chef is a cook!", said one of the girls telling us what is her idea of a chef like.  Most students consider chef is a hard working profession.  After introduction by high school teacher on chef’s basic situation, such as grade levels of chef, compensations, working condition and required quality, ethics, etc., students began to understand more about the profession of chef. The guest speaker presented a thought-provoking question to students : "Do you know why some chefs can command a higher salary such as eight or nine thousand Yuan per month, and some chefs can get only three or four thousand ?"

Xi'an Volunteers works to promote a spirit of volunteerism. Many student volunteers are trained to participate in public welfare activities and social work. The main office is in Xi’an, China.

In poor rural areas of the country, young parents leave their children behind and work in the cities far away from home.  For these children, their wish is to have a new backpack, an extracurricular book, a new dress, a pair of sneakers, a Barbie doll, toy cars, etc. For children in the city,  things like this are pretty insignificant but for these children it is something they may have wished for a long time and still not easy to come by.

May 23, 2014,  Public Service Center 029 of Shan’xi Province worked together with more than 30 employees of Chang'an Airlines of HaiHong Group. With 80 gifts prepared for the children’s “wishes”, they came to visit Ma-Er town Central Primary School. These “loving care gifts” are for children from poor families in the school to celebrate Children’s Day on June 1st. For this activity, we gathered 80 backpacks and each backpack came with some gift worth up to $100 Yuan, worth a total of approximate $13,000 Yuan.  Employees of Chang'an Airlines also presented two sessions of “Loving Heart” lesson in English, good lesson but also pretty entertaining.  It helped these children to broaden their horizon and knowledge. These children also performed some martial arts coupled with passionate music and won several rounds of applause.

Little Red Scarf is in Lanzhou, Gansu province and provides financial support and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, they provide families with post-operative care and help the children sustain a healthy lifestyle.

Qiqi accepted the operation in August of 2011 with the support of Little Red Scarf. 3 years later, my colleagues and I came to Huining and visited her on July 16, 2014.

For the education of the children, the family had to move to a suburban of the city and rented a small room. They opened a small shop in the front of the room. There’s a place for a bed in the behind where Qiqi and her parents live. There are 6 family members. Her elder brother worked in a factory with poor health. Her second brother will study in a college this year and her sister works for a wedding dress shop.

The room is simple and shabby. The roof was built by asbestos tiles. There’s garbage outside of the room. Her mother found a plastic film to cover the floor in order to prevent rain water from the ceiling. Kitchen is behind the door where just for one person.

At noon, her mother began to prepare lunch for Qiqi. Qiqi changed a lot when we saw her. She still recognized me and said, “you are auntie from Little Red Scarf.” Qiqi’s scar was healing well. She showed a little pigeon chest, but her mother said it was much better. We felt relieved to see she ate well.

The life of Qiqi’s family is like a cup of green tea—sweet comes from bitter test. We were happy to see healthy Qiqi and her parents. We hope she will be growing up healthfully and all the best in her future life. 

Original article written by Li Wang, translated by Maggie Li, and edited by Yanyan Zhang

Little Red Scarf is in Lanzhou, Gansu province and provides financial support and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, they provide families with post-operative care and help the children sustain a healthy lifestyle.

Status: Surgery successful, discharged from hospital
Location: Huining County, Gansu Province,  Coordinator: Little Red Scarf Lanzhou Office 
First Visit: 7.24.2011 


 Qiqi is a lucky girl. Her parents just came back from visiting family when they heard a group of children yelling outside saying that there is an abandoned child on the mountain. Just coming back from her mother’s house, Mrs. Li immediately ran up the mountain after hearing the children. When she saw Qiqi, the child was deeply sleeping but had nearly frozen purple. Because of congenital heart disease, Qiqi was abandoned by her birth parents just two days after she was born. When her foster parents first carried her home, she still could not open her eyes. They immediately discovered that she has congenital heart disease, but they still kindly adopted her and went through the official adoption procedures. Qiqi had her parents worried sick. She caught a cold almost every week, and sometimes even had fevers late at night. Her parents could only carry her to the clinic every time. She was very weak physically. She had stayed overnight in the county hospital 3 times, costing the family 7000 yuan in medical expenses. Qiqi needed one package of powdered milk every week. Because Qiqi was eating more and more and the family is not well off economically, they do not have enough money for Qiqi to live only on powdered milk, so her mother would mix in some flour with the milk powder. Qiqi’s parents are very healthy, but they also have three other school-aged children they need to care for. Qiqi’s condition made it very difficult for her already impoverished family. Qiqi’s surgery costs were all borrowed from others, but her mother said that if the child is sick, the sickness could not be ignored and that since I adopted her, I need to take good care of her.

8/27/11 Follow-up call

LY-79 Qiqi: Qiqi is already on her second year in preschool and can participate in all the field activities. Although the child still catches colds very often, she does not need infusions anymore and only needs to take some medicine. The family would like to thank Little Red Scarf for their care and help. We suggest that the child eat more nutritious foods.

Original article translated by EV intern: Allison Zhang

To say that the Kam family has been involved with TFISH this summer would be an understatement. Lauren is one of our high school interns and in the past couple months, Lauren's parents and sisters have joined her in supporting a number of different TFISH projects. In June, the Kam family put on a wonderful benefit concert for Little Red Scarf (Lauren is an excellent violinist) and last month in July, Lauren coordinated a week long music camp for Sahaya International (putting her skills to work). And if they weren't busy enough, in just a couple days, Lauren and her mother, Grace Kam, will be traveling to China to volunteer at Little Red Scarf hospital.

TFISH staff visited Grace and Lauren Kam at their home last month during this "Young Musicians Workshop" music camp. When we arrived, Lauren and her friends, all older high school students, were giving music lessons to about 10 elementary school kids. These aren't typical music lessons. It wasn't located in a school or a professional studio. Music was taught in various rooms in the Kam family's home - each room named after a different musical term. Lauren was giving violin lessons in her bedroom, which she named the "Candenza Room". Piano was downstairs. Arts and crafts was located in the living room. Music theory, outside in the backyard. Brightly colored construction paper decorated the walls. Everyone running around in green shirts - custom made for the camp. At the end of the day, the young musicians brought out prepared snacks and played a couple rounds of musical chairs. 

The Jenny Lin Foundation Summer Music Camp is located this year in the suburbs of the East Bay, at Canyon Middle School. At around 7pm, hundreds of students start lining up at front of the school, instruments in hand, wearing various types of athletic-wear and black framed glasses.

Board member Pat Lee explained that everyone was going along with today's rehearsal theme: "Nerds vs. Jocks", and weekly dress-ups are just one of the ways to get youth to bond as a group and bring a little more fun to music camp. "We start out the camp with a couple people dressed up, not much enthusiasm. But by the end of the summer, nearly everyone is participating and having fun with these themes". The amount of attention and care put into for this program was heartwarming, especially knowing that the camp is run entirely by volunteers. 

Youth Music Camp is split into three sections - Band, Symphonic Orchestra, and Choir. With this year's enrollment hitting over 350, each room is packed with students. In the hot summer heat, it's surprising that these students are choosing to spend their vacation sitting in rehearsals. Mrs. Lin explains, "Camp is actually fun for these kids. Summer is a time where young people can play music without the pressure that exists in the school year. We want youth to have a space where youth can express their creativity with their peers. They meet people from different schools and bond through music". However, this does not mean participating in music camp is all fun and games, students here are committed. Mrs. Lin had a mother report that her daughter was practicing more than she does in the school year. "Our directors here are incredible teachers that volunteer their time for this camp. They push the kids and require a lot from them. And the kids enjoy improving musically."

According to their motto - “Love, truth, and service to community” - Henan Volunteers works to enhance people’s sense of social responsibility through providing them various volunteer opportunities.The office is in Xingyang, Henan province.   

On May 18th, 2014 was the 24th Help-the-Disabled Day here in China. We provided wheelchairs, funds, rice, cooking oil, etc. to the elderly with disabilities and orphans. 

Volunteers gathered at the playground at 8:00pm and were divided into 3 groups. The first group went to visit Wu Yanpeng. They brought a pail of cooking oil (5L) and a bag of rice (5kg).

Wu Yanpeng was excited to see the volunteers.He is a young man with cerebral palsy. His room is neat and clean and he has learned to use the computer. He very optimistic despite the daily challenges he has to face. Below is a picture of him waving goodbye to the volunteers.

Albinism Home is a public service platform designed to help and support albinos and their families living in China. The organization's main goal is to improve living standards and promote equal participation in society for albinos. Abinism Children's Home is in Xi’an, Shanxi province.

Huhu has been volunteering with Albinism Children's home since 2012. She's good with computers and she took on the large task of managing the non-profit's website. It takes up a lot of time, but helping out this Children's home is meaningful for her. She also loves to interact with the kids there. For Huhu, albinism is a very personal issue, for she is albino herself. 

Unbeknownst to the public, many people with albinism could not attend public schools, and go to schools for the blind. This puts people with albinism at an inherent disadvantage. In a society where education is a sign of success and skill, students with disabilities find it difficult to compete in separate schools for the disabled. Huhu however, was able to stay in a public school, though due to her poor eyesight, she had to sit in the first row of the classroom and still had trouble seeing. At a young age, she started feeling disconnected from other children and this often led to low-self esteem.

Still, she was able to do well in school and soon became more confident and open about her differences with other people. She would smile and wave whenever people pointed at her. Her optimism and openness made popular around town. In 2005, she was admitted by Xi’an Technology University. She majored international economy and trade and had excellent scores.

After graduation however, she sent a lot of resumes out, but no responses came back. In September of the graduating year, the university gave her an internship opportunity and she was able to earn 600 yuan per month (roughly $100). After a few years of unsuccessful job hunting, she moved to Shanghai and found more stable employment. When she is not volunteering for the children's home, she works for is an international company, answering customer inquires over e-mail. While it has been a long journey, Huhu is staying positive and doing as much as she can to grow and learn from the world around her.  

From her own personal experiences, Huhu feels that society is becoming more inclusive for marginalized populations. However it is still difficult to get equal treatment for groups with special needs. That is why she spends her time supporting those like her. While it has and will always be an uphill battle, she won't give up. She is chasing a sunshine that can also belong to her and other "moonlight" children. 

Original Article Written by Cuiyan Hu, translated by Maggie Li, edited by Yanyan Zhang