HSBC helps teach the teachers

From June 27 through July 5, HSBC and China Charity Federation teamed up with the Sichuan provincial education department to organize a training course for 49 teachers from the earthquake-affected primary schools located in the hardest-hit counties of Beichuan, Qingchuan and Shifang.

During the nine-day training program, the participants received training on Chinese and mathematics, English and multimedia teaching methods by teachers from leading primary schools in Beijing. With guidance from psychology experts from Peking University, they also learned basic knowledge about post-disaster psychological healing and counseling. They also listened to presentations by Hong Kong medical and rehabilitation specialists and mainland epidemic and infectious disease experts.

"We hope that the course put together by experts will enable these teachers to acquire as much practical knowledge as possible on not just classroom teaching but psychological counseling, health education and epidemic prevention as well," says Kathy Wong, secretary of the Hong Kong Bank Foundation, the charitable trust of HSBC.

"I was extremely sad to lose my mother and my home in the earthquake. But I also felt the unconditional love from so many people." says Yang Chunyan, a teacher at Guan Zhuang Zhen Primary School of Qingchuan county, adding that she is determined to put into practice the "solid and lively" teaching theory learned from this course for her students in the tent-built classrooms.

The course is the 11th workshop under the "HSBC HEY! Support for Rural Children" program. The education-support program was launched in 2007 with a commitment of over 5 million yuan from the Hong Kong Bank Foundation to train 575 rural primary school teachers within three years.