Parents and parents’ committee play a very important role in the model of HPP Preschool of the Future Project. The project organizes parents of 3-6 year old children who are willing to participate in preschool of the future project to establish a parents’ committee in each class through discussion and meetings among the villagers. They can actively participate in construction, operation and decision making of the preschool class. On one hand, this is done to ensure that the project can be accepted by the local people, one the other hand, it can help with capacity building of parents and sustainable community development capacity. 

In the meantime, teachers also play an important role. They spend the longest time in the class and they are the first people to identify problems and ask questions. They then can  mobilize and gather the parents’ committee to discuss issues together and then the parents finally make the decisions.

The teacher of the Little Sun Yingbulong preschool class in Longkai Village, Wengake Township, Ximeng County, - Chen Ewo - , welcomes the children with joy everyday at the door of the classroom. She feels very happy and satisfied when she sees the children carrying a schoolbag and coming to the class happily with their parents. Not long ago, she found an annoying problem. As there was no clean cement playground near the classroom there was only bumpy muddy playground, and muddy water was everywhere when it rained. When the children went to the class, their shoes were wet and dirty with thick mud. The ground which was swept clean before they arrived turned dirty again very soon. It was not much better when it was a sunny day. The wind and the children brought dust into the classroom, and they ran here and there in the classroom. The whole classroom got easily dusty. The children sometimes coughed and sneezed because of this. Even the equipment: TV, sound equipment and bookshelf was easily covered with dust. Teacher Chen thinks that this problems must be solved.   

She started to think how to reduce dust and provided children with a clean and comfortable environment. Therefore, she organized the parents to hold a parents’ meeting. She introduced the problems and recommended parents to take one day to work for the school for free. They were asked to harden the playground. The parents all agreed to do it and they decided to repair the playground on Saturday. 

On Saturday, all parents came to the school. Some took hoes, some took buckets, and some took tools for making cement etc.  The Parents’ committee organized the parents to divide the work and start working. After half a day of hard work, the preschool playground was finally covered with a thick layer of cement. The result was instant!

On Monday, the children shouted “Wow, so beautiful, so clean!” surprisingly. They asked the teacher who made their playground so clean and so beautiful? Ms. Chen said it was repaired by their dads and moms. The children were even happier after listening to this. 

Ms. Chen was very touched. When she saw that the community cohesion was so strong because of parents’ love to their children, they were so passionate to the work, she was deeply touched by the parents’ expectations.

 
Before and after.

 
This project is supported by Huang Yicong Foundation