Education
Five years of volunteer teaching across Oakville and rural China.
The idea of volunteer teaching seemed far-fetched when I was young, but it gradually became central to my life. I started in grade 11, and have since dedicated five years to it. During high school I volunteered at Oakville Galleries' summer art camp, teaching children aged 6 to 12. Witnessing their creativity ignited my passion for teaching.
Growing up in a developing country, I'm acutely aware of educational inequalities worldwide. From 2019 to 2022, I served on the Volunteer Teaching Team for Educating Chinese Children Hope Offered (ECCHO) — a student club and nonprofit supporting underserved children in rural China. We ran charity shops and auctions, promoted volunteer events on campus, and organized educational camps each summer.
COVID-19 forced us to pause in-person events, so we pivoted to remote teaching. We organized mental-health initiatives for left-behind children through phone calls and ran pre-recorded teaching events in the Daliangshan Mountains, Sichuan. In 2022 we hosted a mental-health and teaching event for left-behind children in Linyi, Shandong.
Volunteer teaching isn't a phase — it's a lifelong commitment, and an enduring goal that pushes me to keep learning for the next generation.