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DTZ Cushman & Wakefield Classroom Beijing, May 4

Knowledge Can Change One's Destiny

The 60th Green IT Classroom with DTZ Cushman & Wakefield Opens 

On 4th of May, 22 volunteers from DTZ Cushman & Wakefield embarked on a bus to Beijing Tuanhe School, a primary school located in DaXing District. They were to join in the unveiling ceremony for the “DTZ Cushman & Wakefield Green IT Classroom” and to attend a creative IT and handcrafts class with the students in the school.

Beijing Tuanhe School, seated on the outskirts of Beijing, is an immigrant school serving Beijing’s “immigrant population”– thousands of migrant workers who have flocked to the city in the last decade. Based in the communities where migrant workers live, Tuanhe School offers an attractive alternative to poor migrant worker families for its affordable tuition fees, compared to the expensive costs at private schools.

It's widely acknowledged that the private schools like Tuanhe School lack advanced electronic and IT facilities, and most of students there are taught Maths and Chinese only: they are offered little or no instruction of computer skills are arts as required by the standard curriculum issued from education authorities.

Last year, Netspring noticed Tuanhe School’s conditions and wanted to help the kids get more opportunities to access better educations. In this purpose, Netspring collaborated with DTZ Cushman & Wakefield to establish a Green IT classroom, allowing the kids from Tuanhe School to have a chance to get access to computers and other electronic facilities.

The DTZ Cushman & Wakefield classroom opening celebration started with a national flag-raising ceremony, during which Ms. Wang, DTZ General Legal Director, made a cheering-up speech to encourage students to take opportunities and study hard. The students gave a fascinating dancing performance to thank the volunteers.

Following that, the volunteers and 50 Grade 3 students went to DTZ Cushman & Wakefield classroom to have a special IT and crafts class.

 

The main content of this class was to build an environment-friendly mock city through creativity of both kids and volunteers. The 50 students were divided into 2 groups, one half for the computer activity, and the rest for the eco-city building.

For computer activity, the kids learned to make animations in PowerPoint in an attractive and interesting way with the guidance of volunteers from DTZ Cushman & Wakefield and Netspring. Impressed by the magic of slides animation, the kids showed a keen interest to learn how to further better make slides.

The other group was assigned to build a city featured on little environmental pollution and low cost by using recycled material. They needed to use recycled materials such as newspaper and plastic bottles to create that miniature city. ‘’This is the most exciting class I’ve ever attended’’, a kid said, beamed with joy. An atmosphere of excitement filled the classroom as Green City was built up. Volunteers also marvelled at the kids’ magical creativity which Green City was established from scratch with its pleasant appearance and practical design.

Thanks to DTZ, the migrant children at Tuanhe School have an opportunity to explore their creative potential and the world by means of computers and Internet. 

The success of this special activity reveals the DTZ Cushman & Wakefield’s strong sense of social responsibility and their continuous commitments to sustainability and kids’ education. With DTZ and Netspring’s joint efforts, the future of those migrant workers kids will be even better.

There are loads of schools in rural areas of China having poor educational conditions with little infrastructure and in lack of teaching resources, as China National Television Website reported. For many migrants’ children live alone over years and lack the parents’ supervision, it may lead to their emotional weariness, discourage their motivation for learning knowledge and increase their dropout rates.

The migrant workers’ best wish is nothing other than gaining their kids more education which can help the children to better master their future destiny. But since the inequality of education rights and scarcity of education recourses still exist in China, it is hard for those children get equipped with necessary knowledge to survive or to change their future life. We hope with great help from corporations and organizations, those children could also get equal access to education facilities and equipment as their peers do in developed regions.

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