Treat for left-behind children in summer holidays

Yang Yaohua, 11, came to Wuhan from Kaixian county, Chongqing, for the summer holiday.

A villager escorted Yang and his elder sister, as well as two cousins, to the city, where their parents work at a construction site.

Yang Yaohua with another child watches TV at the rented apartment in Wuhan, Hubei province. [Photo by Liu Kun/China Daily]

They crammed into a rented apartment, which their parents shared with other workers, and slept on a makeshift bed made from a mattress and sheet resting on recycled bottles filled with water to give a cooling effect.

They kept each other company, watched TV and played games after their parents went to work at 5 am.

They wrote their homework outside on an abandoned canteen table where it was cooler than in the non-air-conditioned room.

When they accompanied their parents to the construction site, they played table tennis and billiards in an entertainment room set up for the workers.

Yang said he did not really miss his parents while living with his grandparents in Chongqing.

The most exciting adventure for Yang during the holiday was a four-day summer camp for left-behind children sponsored by their parents' employer, China Construction Third Engineering Bureau.

The camp started on Aug 12 with an English class given by Adams Musa, a Nigerian doctoral student at Huazhong Normal University who has taught as a volunteer for three years at Chunmiao Primary School in Wuhan.

The class was the first English lesson for most of the 12 children at the camp, who were all from rural areas.

They also enjoyed a variety of activities in the four-day event, including outdoor and first-aid training, mental health education and a day trip to Wuhan.