FUZHOU, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Chen Yue, 10, hung a wish card in a school corridor where 170 other New Year wishes from the school's left-behind children await a "Spring God" to fulfill their aspirations.
His wish may seem too small to be regarded as one of the biggest hopes for the New Year: to enjoy a meal cooked by his mother and have his mom and dad around earlier this Spring Festival.
The Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 12 this year, is usually the only chance for Chen to reunite with his parents. His parents are workers on assembly lines in one of the country's major economic powerhouses, Shenzhen, in the far south of China.
Chen and his 170 schoolmates are often dubbed as "left-behind children," which refers to unattended minors under the age of 16 at least one of whose parents ranges farther for work.
Tucked away in the mountains bordering east China's Fujian and Jiangxi Province, Chen's school, the Kefang Central Primary School, has 276 students, and more than 60 percent of the students fall under the category of "left-behind" children.
By 2019, around 9.25 million rural empty-nest children were recorded as studying in primary schools by the country's ministry of education, which reveals a jarringly appalling fact that one in every 11 pupils is shy of parental care.
Rural areas across China have sought to better guard the children in their early years, with employed full-time guardians and paired policemen, free psychological consultation and sports training as well as the children's centers on offer.
The Kefang Central Primary School breaks with standard practice and shifts the focus onto the mental health of the minors. Each teacher in the school has been paired with four to five left-behind children as their acting "guardian" and wish-granting genies in a bottle.
In 2014, the school set up a 15-square-meter wish corridor for the unattended children to write down wishes and for teachers to help their dreams come true. More than 90 percent of the displayed wishes are for the safe and sound return of their parents or growing up as soon as possible to help remove the burden on their parents' shoulders.
Liu Xiaomei, 25, treats the kids as her own. On Dec. 30, 2020, she baked some cookies for Chen and sent the boy a videotape from his parents in Shenzhen. The school held a grand birthday party for the children on the same day. Acting "parents," also their teachers, wished the best for the kids and gave out presents to the 15 birthday boys and girls.
"Every wish card is the children's outlet for their emotions and a connection with the outside world," said Jiang Delong, the headmaster. Left alone, save for daily basic needs met by their grandparents or other kins, the children also suffer from emotional voids which the school is striving to help fill.
The wish corridor is now a go-to place for the pupils where their wishes are shared among close friends.
"I know for sure that my written wish will somehow come into reality," said Wang Chengkun, a fifth-grader. Enditem
