Butuo County in Liangshan Prefecture is a nationally designated poverty county. Most of the people go out to other cities in search of migrant work struggling to make ends meet. Some of the people are illiterate and have little knowledge about the importance of education, seeking health services and understanding the need for hygiene and sanitation. This can also be attributed to the traditional beliefs within this society. The introduction of POF(Preschool of the Future) in the area has seen some changes in terms of hygiene and sanitation and also an understanding of the importance of education. 

Health and hygiene is vital, the Instructors teach the children to wash their hands and faces.

The project team works tirelessly in educating both the parents, teachers who are locally recruited and preschool children about health and hygiene. Due to the teachers’ hard work many children who have attended our preschools have developed the habit of washing their hands, faces and brushing their teeth. This tradition is also spreading to the parents because when the children go home after school they continue to practice what they are taught at preschool and the parents also begin to adopt this behavior. Now some of the parents understand the importance of washing clothes and keeping their surroundings clean.

Preschool children were happy to have new outdoor toys and they are seen happily playing on the slides.

The new semester has started, the project team has been involved in securing that the preschool children have all the necessary resources to secure that they succeed in their first year of school.

The POF Instructors organized children to participate in cleaning actions.

It was a hive of activity on the 4th of September with preschool children starting a new semester. POF Instructors welcomed children to their classes. An important day for the POF Instructors where they used all the skills they had acquired from the training held from the 25th to the 27th of August in welcoming these children and making them adapt to the preschool environment. The Instructors organized children who were enrolled in preschool to take part in cleaning actions. It was good to see the preschool children working together with the Instructors. On the other hand hygiene materials such as teeth brushes, toothpaste, towels etc were secured and distributed to each preschool and later given to all the preschool children. Instructors made name tags on the cups and teeth brush for each child were put inside the cups according to the names written on the cups. Together with their students the Instructors arranged all the books, toys and cups and teeth brushes in respective places in their classes. Involving children in each action is part of training them useful skills they can use in their daily life. In addition to all these activities in the preschools, the project team was also involved in distributing outdoor toys to different preschools.

 A new experience for the children were they are together with other children and they learn to share, to play together and to help each other.

The teacher first show the children how to put things in order then the children do it themselves with the help of the teacher.

Children take the habit of keeping things in order back home where the parents also adapt to it.

Instructors soon after the start of the semester started teaching preschool children about health and hygiene, how to wash their hands, faces and to brush their teeth. The children have also been involved in outdoor activities, dancing and playing outdoor games on slides, playing ball and using different outdoor toys. 

The semester started well and the preschool children will learn a lot throughout the semester, which includes using their hands, bodies, brains and on top of that they will learn the common language Mandarin. Learning Mandarin is very important and is a necessity which will help the children to easily adapt and understand the teachers when they are enrolled in primary school.

This project is funded by Shanghai Charity Foundation/ Rural Early Education Development Fund (http://reedchina.org), Elite Habitat Foundation, (www.elitef.org)Humana People to People Baltic(www.humana.It),  Humana People to People Eastern Holding and U-landshjelp fra Folk til Fork, Norge(

Content in this article reflects the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the funder.