Spreading the word of love in hard-hit communities

Although Li Guofang was a model teacher in Sichuan province, paying close attention to the students' mental health after the May 12 earthquake in 2008, she said she learnt more from her students and was deeply moved by their plight.

"My students' actions and love for society show that, although we are victims of the earthquake, we also have the ability to help others, and we should do that," said Li, a middle school teacher in Pingwu county.

Li was a representative of the first batch of grant-aided teachers funded by German luxury automaker BMW's Warm-Heart Fund.

The BMW charity released its 2010 teachers' award program last week. It will pay for the training of moral education with the theme of "education of love" for teachers from 100 schools in the three provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi, and give an award to promote outstanding cases of "love education".

The program aims to assemble the strengths of education experts, excellent teachers and the BMW Warm-Heart Family to guarantee more students' all-round development in the education of love.

"A child brought up with love education will also become a warm-hearted person. Because he has felt the warmth of love, he will definitely warm others with love," said Li.

"I believe that by carrying out moral education using the BMW Warm-Heart Fund next year, we will be capable of passing this love on even further to create an eternal and infinite love to enlighten a promising future."

Over the year of 2008, the BMW Warm-Heart Fund has organized numerous in-depth visits to the earthquake-hit areas.

It is known that apart from insisting on the completion of the normal teaching curriculum, many outstanding teachers have also passed on feelings of love and gratitude to their students gathered from their own experience.

Nevertheless, the research report on moral education in the three provinces, carried out by the Central Institute for Educational Research and aided by the BMW Warm-Heart Fund, shows that this kind of love education relies on the personal sentiments of teachers and lacks a scientific and effective moral education model suitable for local education classroom.

As such, the 2010 Excellent Teachers' Award Program will organize a team of moral education experts during winter and summer vacations in 2010 to conduct systematic training in love education for primary and secondary school teachers in the three provinces, where education is less developed, and assist teachers to carry out moral activities with love as the theme on the subjects of correspondence, telephone manner, Internet etiquette and so on.

As part of a comprehensive program to pass the love from all society to the children in the earthquake-hit area, BMW also organizes and encourages its staff and car owners to join in the campaign.

In the 2010 Excellent Teachers' Award Program, members of the BMW Warm-Heart Family will pair with excellent teachers and their classes and carry out love education at schools on a regular basis.

The idea is to help students broaden their horizons and establish a positive outlook on life, bestowing love in schools, businesses and society at large.

At the end of term, BMW will also organize experts to select and reward outstanding cases of love education and make a textbook from them which will be distributed to teachers and students of primary and secondary schools all over the country, in order to enable more teachers and students to share the fruits of love.

"Love education for children will influence their entire lives," said Christoph Stark, president and CEO of BMW Group China.

In 2010, the BMW Warm-Heart Fund will establish a platform to pool the strengths of education experts and the BMW Warm-Heart Family in order to bring love education to more children together with excellent teaching.

"Because we believe where there is love, there is a bright future," said Stark.

After the May 12, 2008, earthquake, BMW China and BMW Brilliance jointly donated 10 million yuan as start-up capital to set up the China Charity Federation BMW Warm-Heart Fund and formally launched the education support program on Dec 8, 2008.

With continuous expansion of the BMW Warm-Heart Fund platform, the strengths imported into the Warm-Heart Fund are also being sent continuously to a wider range of people who need help.

Apart from financial support programs such as grants for excellent teachers and outstanding university students, the BMW Warm-Heart Fund pays attention to the pooling and transmission of spiritual love and care.

For example, the spiritual companionship program "Lightening the Hope" is committed to helping children in disaster-hit areas and remote mountainous regions who are in need of spiritual guidance and enlightenment so as to, through long-term care and love in a non-material form, help them increase self-confidence, establish a correct outlook on life and grow up healthily.

The 2010 Teachers' Award Program has also continued this concept of spiritual support, which will not only build a platform for long-term communication between teachers and moral education experts, but also let love be passed and enlarged among schools, society and businesses through the implementation of moral activities at school and mutual participation by members of the BMW Warm-Heart Family.

(China Daily 12/28/2009 page10)