Migrant Children Celebrate Children's Day

A student from Beijing Qingyuan School performs the Uygur dance Grapes Are Ripe. The New Citizen Children's Performing Arts Festival invited over 480 students from 18 schools for migrant children to celebrate Children's Day in Beijing on May 28 with performances such as dance, stand-up comedy, singing, photo exhibits and other activities. [CnDG by Jiao Meng]

Over 480 students from 18 migrant children schools celebrated Children's Day with performances such as dance, stand-up comedy and singing in Beijing over the weekend.

The New Citizen Children's Performing Art Festival was organized by Migrant Workers Home, a non-governmental organization that helps migrant workers and their families to improve their standard of living and defend their rights.

Besides Beijing residents, the festival also included seven girls from Guiyang Miaoling Primary School in southwest China's Guizhou Province and five students from Guangzhou.

Yang Guoying, a student from Miaoling Primary School said she was too excited to sleep and got up at 4:00 AM.

"This is my first time to go out and visit the capital," Yang said. "I'm very happy to meet new friends here."

Marina Svensson, a scholar from Lund University in Sweden, said the event was a good opportunity to let migrant children meet each other and also to be at the center of an event. These experience could give them confidence, she said.

"The students are very smart," said Wang Huanran, a volunteer from China University of Mining and Technology. "We have prepared 200 riddles, but it's clearly not enough."