Tian Guo is an ordinary child mentor of Chunhui Village Program who strives to make an extraordinary difference to the at-risk children he serves.

Diary of Tian Guo

Friday

October 1, 2021

I am a child mentor of Chunhui Village Program. They all say I am “special” maybe because, I think, I was the only one male among a dozen of mentors recruited together by Chunhui Village Program. I had believed that women are better than men at mentoring children, but when I saw what those at-risk children were going through, I decided to stay and help them. My 26 years of life has been nothing unusual and, if any opportunities for change comes along, I will use my life to impact others.

In the past couple of years, I’ve been serving my neighborhood committee and gained some experience working with children. But when I went into the local welfare institution, I found what I knew about orphaned and at-risk children was far from enough.  

In the first three months with the village program, I confronted real tough challenges and worked so hard that I lost more than 10 pounds. A welfare institution is very different from a family and most teenagers there are difficult to work with. I took care of 30 at-risk children in the local institution. Each of them had his/her own frustrations but they all faced one problem in common---personal hygiene. Because of their poor hygiene they had a big trouble getting along at school. So, I focused my efforts on this one problem of them in the early days.

I tried every possible means, giving them lectures about the importance of hygiene, prompting them to buy soaps and towels…… In the autumn, my efforts paid off. The boys developed the habit of washing their head and face. Each day when they saw me, they asked me with a smile: “Tian, isn’t my face as clean as a whistle today?” As we had agreed, they were coming to the activity center neat and clean…….

Dragon Boat’s Festival

June 3, 2022

This summer, the institution smells much better than last year. I still feel bad about myself each time I share program updates with my colleagues. I keep wondering why I always fall behind of them and whether I am qualified for the job. 

Then one day, I found the child Kang about whom I was most concerned stole and became aggressive again. This dealt me a heavy blow because I thought all that I had been striving for was back to square one. I said to my supervisor: “I’ve been working hard for half a year and it seems that nothing works. I doubt whether I am capable of bringing changes to the children.” “Teenage children, especially those who’ve been hurt, don’t change all at once. We need time and patience,” she said. My colleagues begin to care for me as well, not because I am the only one “special male mentor”, but because they see my potential and my passion for the children. Now I am convinced that I have my own strength---I fit in more easily with the teen boys, the group that need the most attention from the institution.

I stop focusing on short-term successes and start paying close attention to each child’s smallest progresses and changes.

School opening day

Sept 1, 2022

My confidence redoubled when I found all the 30 children under my care had surprising changes after attending the 2021 and 2022 summer camps. Yuanhui is one of them. He used to be the well-known “little bully” of the institution and, in the first months with the program, he broke his promises of behaving over and over again. But one day, I noticed his biggest merit ---he is faithful to friends.

Over time, Yuanhui and I became good friends. I encourage him to take the lead in group games and activities. He realizes that to complete a task successfully he need establish a “good relationship” with his groupmates first, so he begins to reflect on his behaviors. In the summer camp, he got two friends and when they said goodbye on the last camping day, I saw his gratitude and affection for his friends. He is changing. He tells me that he wishes to be an ordinary person in 20 years, a person who, like everyone of us, has an ordinary job and an ordinary family with ordinary children.    

It’s not easy to touch hurt children, but I am trying hard to, bit by bit, go into their heart. Maybe it’s an uphill battle but the scenery along the way is just too amazing to miss. I feel an upsurge of emotions while watching the youthful and passionate children like Yuanhui open up their heart, laugh out loud and dream big dreams.

I, an ordinary child mentor, will make every effort to help each at-risk child under my care grow into their best selves.