U-Corp @ Huochai: Lightening up Our Heart with Endless Warmth

Dujia Primary School in Gaoping Town

Bozhuang Primary School in Dicun Village

Liuyu Primary School in Liansi Town

Liangjiagou Primary School in Zizhou County

Qianjiahe branch of Wolongquan school in Gaizhou City

……

Behind this list of supported schools is the long-term effort of the U-Corp @ Huochai team over the past two months. Cooperating with Huochai, the team helped to match students who were willing to donate items to rural teachers’ needs to complete the wish list. Over the past two months, the team has completed at least one wish list a week by donating toys, stationery, clothes, extracurricular books, and other items, which brought love and warmth to children in rural areas.

U-Corp is the abbreviation of the Duke Kunshan University-Corporation Innovation Lab, a co-innovation platform that connects innovative organizations/companies with the vibrant DKU research and entrepreneurial community. The goal is to provide DKU students the opportunity to master industry-proven innovation research methodologies through productive practice and co-creation projects with companies. Meanwhile, the projects also offer cooperative enterprises with forward-looking insights and innovative solutions.

When talking about why they joined the U-Corp @ Huochai team, three members unanimously said that this was the best choice for them. For team leader Jiaxin Shi (class of 2025), the main purpose for her to join the U-Corp project was to participate in extracurricular activities and enrich her personal experience. The U-Corp @ Huochai project immediately attracted her attention when getting to know all the projects offered by DKU InE. In this project, she was able to ensure more rural teachers fulfill their wishes and provide more help to rural children, which is what Jiaxin always wanted to do. As for Tianyu Xu (class of 2025), her target was to understand education in remote areas of China. Although she had some practical experiences working in schools, Tianyu believes she still lacks a deep understanding of rural education and needs to work harder to become a qualified educator. By cooperating with Huochai as a resource coordinator, she further understood the general situation and the needs of rural education. The other member of the team, Xiaoxi Liu (class of 2026) has many teaching experiences. During the summer vacation, she went to Guizhou as a volunteer to teach in rural areas. Through the U-Corp @ Huochai project, Xiaoxi wants to learn more about charity and motivate people around her to promote the development of rural education.

Liuyu Primary School, Henan Province

Huochai is a public welfare project established in Shanghai in 2017 to empower rural education. With the original aspiration of “delivering kindness and enthusiasm” and the mission of “empowering rural teachers and supporting rural education“, Huochai is dedicated to caring for rural teachers, providing spiritual and material public welfare support, conveying kindness and enthusiasm, and then passing on the love to the rural children. Huochai cooperated with DKU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative in the fall of 2022 to promote Huochai’s wish list, which encourages more students to participate in the daily necessities collection and resource coordination on the wish list and supports the development of rural education.

At the beginning of this project, the team formed the overall goal and the ways to achieve it. The public WeChat Official Account “Let Love Brightens Our World – DKU Charity Group” created by them expresses the common wish of the three girls: to find like-minded friends around them, to make others little matches like them, to radiate their light and heat, and to deliver energy to rural education. Through the wish list, the team will match students willing to donate idle resources with rural teachers in need and share different wish lists in the self-operated community so that the team members can find more suitable matchings. Upholding the philosophy of no third-party intervention, the team encourages everyone to select the wish list for donation voluntarily.

The team has a clear division of tasks: Jiaxin Shi, as the team leader, is responsible for coordinating and planning the project’s progress; Tianyu Xu takes up the work of event planning and fund management; Xiaoxi Liu is in charge of the daily publicity of the event. During the project, the team needs to complete at least one wish list of Huochai and submit a written report on a weekly basis.

During the progress of this project, the team members had a deeper understanding of how hard it is to implement rural public welfare. The most challenging part is to motivate donors and obtain their long-term support. Donated items such as stationeries can be easily collected due to their personal wide range of needs. However, the team found that in most cases, even though the students noticed the news of donations or charity sales, they still missed the donation events due to the cumbersome packing process or personal affairs. The team members plan to hold an offline donation event, where everyone can witness the results and get involved in improving the situation. In the later stage of the project, the materials on the wish list require the team to contact suitable donors outside the school by themselves. The process of waiting for the vendor’s response is really time-consuming and laborious.

“Adversity makes one stronger, just as polishing makes jade finer.” The past four weeks have been challenging but fruitful for the team. In the project, what impressed members the most was Dujia Primary School in Gaoping Town, Jingchuan County, Gansu Province. There are only two grades, two teachers, and six students in the school. Most of the difficulties in the rural primary schools that the team members have learned about before are insufficient teaching resources and poorly-equipped schools. This is the first time that team members have encountered such a situation. After donating children’s toys and other materials to the primary school, they received a reply from the teachers:

“The rose is in her hand, the flavor is mine. Acts of kindness are symbols of one’s virtue, and wisdom creates an open-minded person. Thank you for your enthusiastic participation in social welfare and generous donations, which embodies the love and kindness of a person with social responsibility. The students of Dujia Primary School will definitely repay your kindness and pass on their love with their own actions. We will live up to the strong support and high expectations from you and people from all walks of life. I also hope you can establish a pioneering spirit of self-improvement, courage, high spirits, and courage to work hard, study hard, make progress, and strive to be a new generation of successors.”

This experience taught the team members that although the power of individuals is limited, the strength of the general public is immeasurable. As long as the people around them are brought together, they can help more groups in need.

Dujia Primary School in Gaoping Town

Another thing that left a deep impression on them was when they posted the wish lists in the community to collect stationeries for donation. They received many positive responses from students, which made the team realize that many students in the school have the same wish as they do and are eager to do their best to help others.

While completing the wish list, the team also receive support and guidance from Huochai and the InE. Huochai and the team are closely connected. When the team mentioned that they wanted to send warmth and show their love to the children through postcards during a charity sale, experts from Huochai suggested they need to pay great attention to the wording in postcards, which come from Huochai’s rich experiences. They gave the team professional advice on specific problems and did their best to help the team complete the wish list. DKU InE also provides support on the team budget and direction of development. In addition to the weekly meeting, the mentors from the InE also lend a helping hand when the team encounters problems with the development direction, and are actively looking for funds to support the team’s grow into a long-term project.

For team members, the most valuable experience about participating in this U-Corp project is that everyone can do his/her part and actually help others. In this mini-program of the Huochai family, the team members heard feedback and gratitude from the primary school teachers after completing each wish list. Being touched by the powerful words, they kept thinking about how they could better help elementary school students in remote areas. Starting from scratch, the team bridged up those in need and those with extra resources to achieve the perfect match between donors and recipients. As a communicator and coordinator, the team maximizes the usage of resources and delivers love and warmth to people’s hearts.

Liangjiagou Primary School, Shaanxi Province (Upper)

Bozhuang Primary School, Hebei Province (Bottom)

In the near future, the U-Corp @ Huochai Team will become DKU’s first charity group and develop into the first long-term U-Corp project with the help of DKU InE. The team hopes that more students will participate in public welfare and help more people in need. In addition to donating materials, the team also looks forward to holding more charity activities and inviting students to continue supporting rural education development. What’s more, the team will also strive to cooperate with social enterprises or non-profit organizations.

One of the non-profit organizations that the team is currently contacting is Bright & Beautiful. It is the first educational non-profit organization in China dedicated to supporting adolescent girls’ physical and mental growth. By organizing art exhibitions and setting up art courses, the organization encourages children to express their ideas and helps girls grow up in happiness. This cooperation reminds the team that many students who majored in Media Arts in the school are interested in caring for women. In the future, the team looks forward to inviting these students to participate in this charity activity.

For the team members, bringing material support to the children and accompanying them to grow up with warmth and love are the reasons why the team continues to devote themselves to rural education. Though the time of cooperation with Huochai is limited, the needs on the wish list are continuous. Therefore, the team wants to organize students who are interested in charity to contribute their energy together with the team.

For students who want to apply for the U-Corp projects in the future, the team suggests that applicants need to take every part of the application seriously. More importantly, applicants should fully understand and truly love this project by asking themselves what they really want to do and what they are interested in, not just creating a perfect resume. In addition to completing the project, students can think about what they can improve. After all, the purpose of participating in U-Corp projects is not only to complete the cooperation tasks but also to develop one’s individual abilities.

As the saying goes, “A single spark can start a prairie fire.”

For the members of U-Corp @ Huochai team, although they are only small matches, they will pass on love and kindness and light up people’s hearts, and send endless warmth to everyone.