Thirty-five-year-old mother-of-three Huang Gui’e, from Fuping Village in Shaanxi Province, China, never received any formal education and has managed to get by on simple manual labor work on a part-time basis. Getting by, however, is not the life she dreams of for her children.
Huang recognizes all too well that literacy is essential in building a successful and fulfilling life and is determined to give her children the opportunities she never had by ensuring they attend school and have a good learning environment. Since she was unable to help her children with their studies due to her lack of education, Huang bought them a computer so they could search for information on the Internet to supplement their homework and learning.
Huang never dreamed she’d be able to use the computer herself but thanks to adult literacy classes supported by her county’s Women’s Federation and Aide et Action, she is now achieving the impossible. Since attending the classes, she has learned how to read and write Pinyin – the official romanization system for Standard Chinese.
Currently, Huang is making a living as a farmer alongside her husband but her lack of agricultural knowledge means she needs to regularly consult with technicians. But, by concentrating on learning specialized vocabulary in her literacy class, her conversations with the technicians have become a lot easier and more efficient. While the work in the greenhouses is quite hard, she is happy to tell us that thanks to her expanded knowledge, the cucumbers are growing well and she has much more hope for the future!
Feature photo: Credit https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/garden-throwel-with-seedlings-greenhouse_5357115.htm