Help a village care for its left-behind children

Thank you for supporting our work on behalf of children of migrant parents in rural China! We hope you enjoy this uplifting update about our village program.

When residents in one village where OneSky works joined together to create Paradise Park, a hand-built playground for their children, they managed to create some magic for everyone.

When the park was finished, villagers hung up a sign: “With our community’s support, cheerful joy is overflowing.” Children soon flocked to the playground.

And then something unexpected happened.

One day, a grandmother who had accompanied her grandchild to the park, sat waiting, and pulled out her knitting needles and yarn. “I came up with the idea of knitting something fun for a little child to play with,” she says. The click click of her needles soon attracted other adults, who came into the lounge area and watched, admiring the results—hats, doilies.

Before long, with the encouragement of OneSky’s family mentors, several more grandmas joined the group. Knitters who were more experienced offered to teach the others, and the little group was soon happily knitting away, sharing balls of yarn as colorful as the painted tires in Paradise Park.

They knitted dolls for the children, coasters, cushions. “These are more beautiful than the knit items sold in shops,” exclaimed one villager who stopped by to watch. Some of their creations, the grandmothers decided, would be good presents for people in the village. Maybe, they thought, someday they could even begin to sell some of their handicrafts.

For now they are happy being in each other’s company. Usually around a half dozen knitters show up three or four times a week. As they knit, they share their stories about their children working outside the village and the grandchildren they are caring for.

One woman paused to say, “Our grandson is now in the OneSky program. He has gone through a very big change. He used to be afraid of people, but now he is not. He dares to speak up and he behaves better.”

Another said, “My grandson used to know little about colors. But now he can clearly differentiate them. Every time I knit, he stands beside me and tells me what color each strand of yarn is. The program is really helpful for the children!”

One grandma put down her needles and yarn for a moment and seemed to sum up the experience for everyone: “I think we have knitted our neighborhood into a close net,” she said with a big smile.

Thank you for supporting our work on behalf of children of migrant parents in rural China! We hope you enjoy this update about some beautiful new murals in our village program.

OneSky Family Mentor Liu is very comfortable welcoming children to our Family Center and visiting families at home, but she was a little nervous when she first picked up a paint brush…

Liu’s scary artistic endeavor was painting colorful murals on the walls of houses to let passersby know about our new programs for the children. After the first house gave Liu and other Family Mentors permission to paint, she took a deep breath and dipped her brush in a brand new bucket of paint. “Right away, we experienced the hardships of painters!” says Liu. “The paint flew everywhere!”

As the little group was splashing away, an older man wandered down the path and offered to help because, he said, “The children at the OneSky Family Center are developing very well. They are more confident, optimistic, and lively.” With great enthusiasm and confidence, he went to work, saying, “Just leave it all to me!” Soon they decided it was time to get a little bolder. “We drew a house and a green leaf,” says Liu. “The day just flew by.”

The next day when Liu showed up to paint, some villagers were already there wanting to help. “I was surprised,” says Liu, “but I learned later that a lot of parents wanted to help after hearing that the Family Mentors had been painting the walls. I was deeply moved.”

One of the new volunteers was a young boy, who dipped his brush in green paint and carefully painted some grass on the wall. “My younger sister goes to the Family Center,” he told everyone. “She’s become much more talkative and adorable. Therefore, I want to make my contribution.”

Thanks to all the volunteers, the murals became more detailed: one volunteer added grapes, another brushed in some flowers, another small figures of children, including one holding a balloon, and another a castle. When the walls were all complete, there were a few final touches, including some Chinese calligraphy to explain what the wall painting was all about.

When the last character had been brushed, Liu looked around at her fellow painters and realized they were all covered with as much paint as she was. “They looked like paintings themselves,” she says with a giggle. As everyone cleaned up, all the volunteer painters felt a deep sense of accomplishment, especially Liu: “As I walked home, I was so touched by the support of the villagers. It proved they value our work, and we were inspired to work even harder next year in order to repay them.”