Onederland:Music & Sports for Rural Kids

In fact, every child is excellent, in the past we were used to using marks to evaluate children, after participating in the One Paradise Programme and receiving training, I know that every child has their own infinite potential, the key lies in the way we as teachers guide and educate them.

--Zheng Beidou, a rural teacher in Gansu.

Liu remembers how he looked when the first school was successfully given a basketball court.

It was the beginning of 2022 and he was cooking when he heard the news, so happy that he ran across the courtyard with a spoon in his hand.

Liu said, 'In rural primary schools in Qingyang City, only a few have standard football or basketball courts, most playgrounds are concrete, a few are brick, and very few are grass, and when it rains or snows, the children don't have the means to play sports for a few days.

In order to identify the schools most in need of help, he has visited more than 100 schools in Qingyang City between now and 2020, and selected five schools with relatively poor sports facilities. He and his colleagues from the agency came to conduct the site visits, and One Foundation found the donors to get the project off the ground. Four facilities were delivered, including a football pitch and three basketball courts.

To professionalise the football programme and address the inequality of educational resources, the project has also brought in professional sports coaches to provide consistent training for the sports teachers at each participating school. The children are taught some basic football skills at intervals.

Numerous studies have shown that sport is beneficial to young people's mental health, particularly in terms of building mental toughness.

Through sporting activities, children learn to be winners and losers, practice teamwork and leadership skills, while reducing stress, increasing self-confidence, and building better relationships with teachers, students and peers so that they are better able to cope with the challenges of learning and life.

As of June 2024, the Onederland Project has completed the construction of multi-functional playgrounds in 120 rural schools in 18 counties (cities and districts) in Gansu Province, China, and organised special training for rural physical education teachers, directly benefiting more than 64,000 children.

In the future, Onederland Project hopes to join hands with more social forces to support the physical education of rural children, with the help of enterprises and platforms, to pass on the sports dreams of rural children.