Life and Leisure
NGO work is a different chess game at Bethel
By Mike Peters (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-06 10:31
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Bethel children learn to sing and play the piano in |
It's the most wonderful time of the year, as the Christmas classic song goes, and also one of the busiest for Zachary Taylor Johnson.
As executive assistant for Bethel China Foundation, a Beijing-based NGO that supports blind orphan children, Johnson's duties include event planning. And there are lots of events for Bethel at years' end, including choral performances by students at holiday programs and a fundraising show on Dec 11 for Bethel itself.
While such events mean important community exposure for the organization, Johnson says the performances are most valuable for the Bethel residents who come and sing their hearts out.
"Our ultimate goal is to teach the students self-reliance, and how to do practical jobs," says Johnson. "But we also want them to be well-rounded people, so they all learn piano and choral," he says. Singing short holiday concerts is a way the students enjoy success in their artistic endeavors.
"We have full-time teachers who give them a basic education - here that means learning English, Chinese and French languages, math, science, physical education and computer skills," Johnson says. Special screen readers make the power of the PC accessible to blind students, who are also guided by vocal prompts from the software through headphones.
Children who come to the Bethel orphanage experience two dramatic transitions, he says.
"At first, it's like they've landed in Toyland - there is so much to do and play with that they've never had before." But after a couple of weeks, he says, another reality sets in: "They have chores and they have homework," he says. "That is new for many of them, too."
Johnson came to China - and Bethel - as a short-term volunteer in 2008, and returned to his native Rhode Island to work at another nonprofit back home: placing senior citizens in volunteer opportunities.
While he debated between looking for a more lucrative position or sticking with something more meaningful and satisfying, he had the opportunity to come back to Bethel and jumped at it.
At leisure, Johnson likes basketball, travel and painting, so he's fond of a stroll in the 798 Art Zone which is "right in my backyard". He's also a chess fanatic and always struggling to find a game, sometimes in person, sometimes online.
What about Chinese chess?
"I've seen it, of course," he says. "But I've played international-rules chess a long time. It's just a different game."
He'd like to teach chess to some of the residents: "I was thinking of getting a special tactile chess kit. But to be frank, I have not taken advantage of that thought."
And if you're wondering about his name, Zachary Taylor Johnson is not a descendant of a long-ago US military hero and president.
"It just happens that my mother's family name is Taylor," he says, so the combination "Zachary Taylor" is pretty much an accident.
His workdays are never the same twice, thanks to a mix of accounting, event-planning, designing a variety of materials, writing a newsletter, updating the website and coordinating volunteers.
There is variety because the residents vary in age - "from babies to about 22 years old" - and because Bethel doesn't simply send students on their way after graduation. This is not a place where kids are taken care of until someone adopts them. "Our mission is just really different," Johnson says. "We expect them to be here until they are ready to make their way successfully in the world. So beyond their formal education they learn basic skills and a degree of self-reliance, most continuing to live here as young adults in an assisted living facility."
Bethel works to find a suitable internship for each student upon graduation, and then - ideally - a job.
"It's the old story," he says, "We could give them a fish - and we do - but we want to teach them to fish."