Cloud Project brings different future to children in SE Yunnan

Zhang Ping with children from the Naduo village

Naduo is a village of Yi people sitting in Yanshan county, southeast Yunnan’s Wenshan Zhuang and Miao autonomous prefecture.

There are 72 households in the village at present, and nearly every household has one or two “leftover children” who live with grandparents as their moms and dads spend most of the time working in towns or cities.  

  

Zhang Ping helps a girl put on traditional ethnic costume in the village.

Zhang Ping teaches young girls to dance.

Zhang Ping, born in Yanshan herself, is an experienced dance teacher who has been living in Beijing for years.

After seeing a few pictures of the “leftover children” from her hometown in 2016, she told herself that she has to do something for them.

Zhang Ping soon launched a project named “Cloud Project” with her husband which aims at bringing a different future to the children in Naduo village though dance training.

  

Zhang gives fresh fruits to a girl’s family.

Since 2016, Zhang Ping and her husband have been traveling to the village every year to teach local girls dancing. They also recruit local dancers in Yanshan to give lessons to students on a daily basis.

In 2019, Zhang Ping even decided to quit her job in Beijing and be back to Yanshan. Moreover, she has founded a volunteer services center named after Cloud, with a hope to better take care of and help children from across Yanshan county.  

  

Zhang rehearses with her students in a yard.

Under the auspices of Zhang Ping, a total of 62 children from 17 villages in Yanshan have been allowed to learn dancing at art schools in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province.

Today, residents in Naduo have seen Zhang Ping and his husband as the 72th household in the village. Her students even call her “A’mei” which means mother in the language of Yi people.

Zhang walks with girls in the Naduo village.

Regarding the future, Zhang says that she would like to carry on with her Cloud Project, helping more children from mountainous areas in the same way as she helps her students right now.

Reporting by Chen Xinbo (Xinhua); trans-editing by Wang Jingzhong