By Chris Gelken & Shirley Han Ying

"CAI is a Chinese character, is three simple strokes. And it means talent, human talent. And for us, it's really something that represents how we can turn something as simple as children into something great."

"We really represent values. We want to build up children from the inside out. So human talent is really something great, and the symbol of CAI is what we want to use because it's so simple."

Judy Shen is the founder of CAI, a non-profit that works with the children of migrant workers. From humble beginnings, it has now touched the lives of an estimated 100,000 children.

"CAI actually started as a stand alone project. It started out as a summer camp, it was something that I felt compelled to do, but it was also a format where I felt by myself I could put it together. And so, it started out as a need I saw in the community. There were just so many migrant children here when I first started. I didn't really have a long-term vision in terms of making it into an organization. But as a result of our first summer camp, and the really positive input we received from volunteers and from teachers, as well as the children. We just felt compelled to continue."

China's rapid economic growth continues to fuel a huge need for labour in the major urban centers. The employment opportunities have attracted millions of migrant workers from the countryside.

Making education available for the children of these migrant workers is a challenge, and is usually provided by privately run schools in the suburbs. The facilities at these schools are often limited, and that’s where organizations such as CAI step in, adding special value added activities to the school's curriculum. 
 
"For any immigrant, you come to a new environment and how do you adjust, especially when the social network or social infrastructure are not in place yet to provide for your basic need, such as education? What we are trying to do is instill them with soft skills that will help them to deal with the problems they will eventually face, but also to take advantage of the opportunities that they may come across but they may not recognize."
 
CAI doesn't operate schools itself, but rather enters into collaborative arrangements with the existing schools for migrant children which are usually set up by private individuals or trusts.
 
"Our relationship with the school is a long-term one. We always look to develop a good relationship; we always encourage the administrators' input because we think it's important to get their support. They are a beneficiary as well. The children are direct ones, but the school is also a beneficiary."

CAI offers the youngsters interactive courses in art, music and sport–building healthy minds and bodies.

"We want the children to learn about how to live life in a positive manner, how to be a positive contributor to a society, and how to live a life healthily, in spirit, mind, body, physically."
 
Volunteering, however, is very much a two-way street, and Judy says the volunteers themselves invariably benefit from the experience.

"I've seen our volunteers who participated our program who never volunteered before, and come to me when our program ends and say, 'Judy, you've inspired me to go on and do something else. I'm setting up a program to bring a teacher down to Yunnan. For example, we had volunteers who come up to me said, 'I'm thinking of setting up this project to help special needs children.' So it's been really fantastic, we got positive feedback from them. They are actually one of the main reasons why I kept the program going after the initial summer camp."

Collaboration with other organizations is really important for CAI. They have found it is a great way to maximize resources and improve efficiency.

"So what we've done is we partnered up with an international school called Dulwich here in Beijing, and we bring a group of high school students in and run a program on Saturdays. One it fulfills their community service requirement, but two it also creates pure educators. And that's really important for the community. It's good for the migrant children because there is interaction with people outside of their community, the international students. But two, it's good for the international students because they get to see what the local environment is outside of what they see on a day to day basis."

CAI has ambitious plans to extend their services to one million children And while that seems like a huge number, it is only about half a percent of the total of about 250 million migrant children.

On a personal level, Judy says her interaction with the children and volunteers has been a truly uplifting experience.

"It's been really rewarding. To me, I've learnt so much, personally I've grown so much, and professionally I've grown so much. And I've come across so many walks of life because of the network we created through this work that we do."

And Judy is full of praise for her team, highlighting their dedication and commitment to improving the lives of those perhaps less fortunate.

"We are small. We run our operations very lean, so they (the volunteers) take on quite a lot of work, quite a lot of responsibilities. But they've been so dedicated, so devoted and so passionate. I'm just so grateful for their dedication thus far in their work to the children."

To learn more about CAI and how you can support their activities, either as a volunteer or through a donation, visit their website www.cai-china.org