One Million Words Donates to Help Children in Tibet at Senjimeiduo School

DeQen, China, June 19, 2015 (Newswire.com) - One Million Words (www.onemillionwords.org) is proud to announce that they have completed the first stage of their efforts to help children in Tibet by giving the gift of literacy to the Senjimeiduo Tibetan Charity School in Dali, Yunnan, China, thanks to a charity auction held by Single Malt Online.

On Monday, June 1st, Dr. Robert Lockyer and Kitty Zhang from the organization made the arduous trip to Dali, Yunnan, China to attend the official opening ceremony of the new Senjimeiduo library. The old library was lost in a tragic fire in 2014, along with all of the story books and classroom materials they had available. Dr. Lockyer gave a presentation about One Million Words and presented teenage level readers to the library as some of the first new books to line its shelves.

Seeing the children's faces light up, not just at having new books, but for the knowledge that they can get a real education - that's the whole reason we do this

Dr Robert Lockyer, CEO, One Million Words Organization

On Tuesday, June 2nd, the pair traveled to Lijiang, Yunnan, to meet with the principle of the Senjimeiduo school to discuss the details of the donation and assess future needs. The school has asked for more local language books, more English readers, and if possible, books catering to students learning Chinese as an additional language, as these are difficult to come by. Dr. Lockyer discussed the current Indiegogo campaign (http://igg.me/at/lVIVDaJR3GI ) to help raise awareness and hopefully provide much needed funds to turn this request into a reality.

Wednesday, June 3rd proved to be one of the most eventful days of the trip, as Dr. Lockyer and Ms. Zhang observed classes and performed the official donation of handing over a total of over 900 curriculum books – worth over $7,000USD - that were desperately needed by the school so they could return to having regular classes and provide the children with a competitive education. They also gave lessons on how to use and fully understand the materials, rather than just reading and reciting them.

The morning of June 4th, Dr. Locker and Ms. Zhang taught lessons using the newly donated books for the children, as well as to educate the teachers in methods of fully utilizing their content and ways to expand on the lessons. In the afternoon, the students gave a short presentation about story telling using some of the new storybooks and sang local and English songs as a way to show their appreciation.

The final day of the trip on Friday June 5th involved travelling back to Dali where a meeting was held and One Million Words was asked to help write a curriculum for the school and source additional books dealing with math, music, art, science, Chinese, and the humanities.

“Overall, it was a very successful endeavor”, said Dr. Robert Lockyer. “Seeing the children’s faces light up, not just at having new books, but for the knowledge that they can get a real education – that’s the reason to do this.”