New hope for migrants’ preschool

Open, but for how long?

Even before it was evicted from the market due to safety concerns, the group was shut down twice when its students had an outbreak of hand-foot-mouth disease and flu. 

Tuesday’s shutdown came because the group never registered as an organization and did not exist as a legal entity. It also failed to hire a security agent, the neighborhood administration said. 

While it acknowledged that the group helped the community, the administration pledged to oppose the group’s presence until it has filed all the necessary paperwork.

The latest eviction worried many parents at the market.

One father, Zhao Mingliang said throwing the children back on the street or locking them up at home would expose them to dangers again.

Huang Rong, a mother with a four-and-half-year-old, said she is out of options for where to send her daughter. Both she and her husband have stands at the market, and when her husband is off filling orders she has to be there to watch the business.

She said Sihuan Game Group helped her daughter learn manners and keep clean. Since its closure she has been looking for a registered kindergarten, but the only options are private schools that cost 2,000 to 3,000 yuan per month.

She finally found a kindergarten that cost 700 yuan per month, but said its conditions were atrocious. She said she had heard people refer to it as a“black kindergarten,” which made her very suspicious about the education it offered.

For the time being, it appears that the volunteers’ persistence has softened the neighborhood administration. It is being allowed to continue its activities on the condition that it promptly finishes the necessary paperwork.

Li Xiangyu, a graduate student at Beijing Normal University and volunteer, said the group has been searching since Thursday for a government body willing to help it register as an NGO.

“However, it’s very hard to find a company or an organization that will help us because no one wants to take joint responsibility,” Li said. 

If the search fails, the volunteers may be left with one other option: to use the same backdoor as most Chinese NGOs and register as a company.