BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University sophomore Li Haoda spent the first 10 years of his life in a small village in China before he moved to a nearby city of Guangzhou. Years later, when he returned to visit to the rural village, he realized his childhood friends had few educational opportunities.

“The people I went to school with [when I was very young] were just as smart as I was, but about one in five of them dropped out of school,” said Li. “The rural schools just did not have the opportunities that were available in the city.”

The disparity of educational opportunities spurred Li to join the Peer Experience Exchange Rostrum (PEER), a not-for-profit organization geared toward bringing educational equality to China. The group recruits Chinese students studying abroad to volunteer at summer tutoring camps for students in rural, impoverished areas of China.

“We dedicated ourselves to a seemingly impossible mission: to provide resources for disadvantaged children in China, supporting their continued education to change their lives,” said Li, who joined PEER in 2008 when the organization only had 10 volunteers. “We faced obstacles in our work, such as enduring an eight-hour bus ride to a remote rural school, and coordinating multi-national volunteers in nine-hour online meetings, but with each minute devoted to my work, I better prepare volunteers, thereby helping the poor students gain more from our summer camps.”

Now in is third year with the group, Li became executive director last year. “When you create opportunity, people can discover their passions,” said Li, an Illinois Wesleyan sophomore with a double major in political science and economics. “That works both for those getting help, and the volunteers providing it. People can have a passion, but no opportunity. This is an opportunity.”

More