Jordan inspiration has Chinese youngsters reaching for the top

"The biggest advantage of this program is that Jordan brand plays a much bigger role than just a donor, but more of a designer and facilitator throughout the whole process of the program," said Xu Lin, head of Social and Community Impact of Nike Greater China.

"With the program entering a new phase, it calls for stronger commitment and greater initiative from the mentors to focus on each and every student's specific conditions after their graduation from high school, and to develop respective solutions for helping each of them over their own challenges," she added.

With over 1,000 students under the program having graduated from high schools, Xu revealed that Nike will provide access to internship and part-time jobs for them at the Nike and Jordan Brand's retailing outlets in major cities, to prepare them for a smooth transition from campus to their future careers.

"The working experience and challenges they might face as interns or part-time employees will help broaden their horizon, improve their communication skills and gear them up for pursuing whatever they are interested in as their future career choice," said Xu.

The program will also build a communication platform, or a mini community, in each of the cities where the graduates are settled, for them to stay in close contact with their mentors and share inspirational experiences with each other.

As a member of the founding 2015 class of the Wings program, Li Yang, who hails from a rural county in China's northeastern Heilongjiang province, recalls the opportunity to meet Jordan during the program's launch in 2015 as a life-changing moment.

Supported by a scholarship for three consecutive years through the Wings program, Li finished high school with outstanding academic performance and has been studying at Changsha University in the Hunan provincial capital with a major in telecommunication engineering.

"If without this program, I wouldn't have imagined that I could make such a big step out of my small home county to study in a southern metropolis so far away from home and chase after my dreams," said Li.

"The inspiration I got from this program is you could always dare to dream big and go after it with consistent effort."