Left-behind children in a village in China's Guizhou Province are having a happier summer vacation playing basketball.
GUIYANG, China, August 18 (Xinhua) — At 6 o'clock in the morning, Yang Ziyi and her twin sister Yang Ziyao went out with a basketball in their arms. Soon, they met their coach, Ouyang Dasong, and other friends from their village, who also held basketballs.
Yang Ziyi is one of millions of rural children in China whose parents live and work many hundreds of miles away in the cities, known as left-behind children. With their parents living in Shenzhen, the Yang sisters live with their grandparents in Changtuan village, in Tianzhu County, southwest China's Guizhou Province.
They arrived at their destination, Changtuan Primary School, which had been closed since September 2017 after the last two students transferred to a school in a neighboring village.
It was not until August 1 this year when Ouyang set up a free basketball training class in the village that Changtuan Primary School regained popularity.
Ouyang is a PE teacher at Tianzhu County Ethnic Middle School. He found that many left-behind children in the village didn't have the opportunity to participate in sporting activities during the summer vacation. Instead, they spent most of their time watching TV or playing on their mobile phones at home, or simply running around the streets.
After learning of this situation, he conceived the idea of free basketball training classes to help these children enjoy their summer vacation.
These children who came to participate in the training are of different ages, but all have happy smiles on their faces. At 8:30am, they finish their first training of the day.
"We practise twice a day, and these children will have their second session from 6:30pm to 8:30pm," said Ouyang.
Ouyang's basketball training class began on August 1, with only a few children attending at the beginning, but more children joined up after word spread. So far, nearly 60 children aged five to 12 have signed up.
"Some children had never played basketball before but have now mastered most of the skills I taught them. Several boys can even finish dribbling and passing, and their shooting posture is better than before." said Ouyang.
"I am very happy to play basketball, but also a little tired." Yang Ziyao said.
The local villagers installed six lights for the basketball court at their own expense to support Ouyang. One villager, Yang Renyuan, donated 30,000 yuan (about 4,300 U.S. dollars) to build a plastic basketball court in the village.
"I hope they can have a good basketball court and play basketball at any time," said Yang, who was unable to play basketball when he was a youth owing to a lack of facilities in the village.
Other villagers also raised money to help build the plastic basketball court together, and the construction will begin when students return to school.
Ouyang found that the left-behind children have a strong desire for sports activities.
"I will set up basketball training classes for left-behind children in the village every summer in the future," he said.
(Source: Xinhua)
