Andover China Care

Contact Information

Katherine Chen (kchen1@andover.edu), Michael Zhan (mzhan@andover.edu)

How To Join

Just contact us!

Club Description

Andover China Care raises money for Chinese orphanages, Chinese rural schools and schools for migrant children, and the Children’s Village. The money goes toward food, clothing, improvement of educational facilities, and medical care. $20 can feed an orphaned child for two weeks, and one Phillips Academy student’s tuition can provide at least five orphaned children with food, clothing, and an education for an entire year.

Schools for migrant children are not government supported and are therefore forced to move every time government officials shut them down. Nevertheless, the teachers try to provide these migrant children—some of whom walk miles every day just to go to school—with the best education they can. Migrant families will move to Beijing in search of employment; the children are not allowed to enroll in the Beijing schools because their birth districts are in other provinces. Migrant workers and their children are considered outsiders and not offered aid from the Chinese government.

Founded by Zhang Shuqin, the Children’s Village is a shelter for children whose parents are serving prison terms. It is located in the Banqiao village, north of Beijing, and is a privately run organization with no financial support from the state and no prior tradition of private philanthropy in China. The Village provides its residents with basics such as clothing, food, and shelter. An old medical clinic is used to house the children, and China’s Prison Bureau has donated furniture such as bunk beds for the children’s dormitory rooms. School fees at local elementary and middle schools are waived for the Children’s Village kids, simply because there is no way to find funding to pay for their education.

Zhang has managed to set up six group homes for these children, and the number of kids living there has grown from 36 to almost 200.