Earlier this year I traveled to Lincang in western Yunnan province to document the work of Teach For China, an NGO that hires dynamic recent-graduates from both US and Chinese universities to teach for two years in underserved areas of rural China.
Like most public services, education in China is hugely unequal, with resources and quality teachers channeled predominately to urban areas. Teach For China seeks to redress that. An affiliate of Teach For America, they recruit students from top universities, give them a crash-course in education (and for Americans amongst them, 普通话), and send them to some of the poorest areas of the country. The challenges they face there are immense but the work they are doing is profound. My still photographs were featured in their 2011 annual report:
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And a promotional video I shot and produced (edited by Mandarin Films) is now online here: