Flourish Magic School Project

Programme Partner: Rici Foundation

Region: China

In China, among children aged 6 to 16, an estimated 17.5% experienced mental health disorders, including anxiety, depression, substance use, as well as attention-deficit and disruptive disorders. In addition, rural children, especially left-behind children, have higher risks of mental issues but very limited access to mental health resources. 

In order to address this challenge, the Flourish Magic School project aims to enhance the social and emotional skills of school children living in rural areas of mainland China through the provision of social and emotional learning (SEL) curricula focusing on self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. It is achieved through the following actions:

• developing a series of culturally adaptive, grade-based SEL curricula for school children aged 6 to 15.
• training teachers to deliver SEL curricula in class, as well as improving the mental wellbeing of teachers.
• collaborating with county-level education bureaus to create a positive environment for mental health prevention and promotion and engage more schools and educators.

Rici Foundation will continue to build partnerships with county-level education bureaus and these will take 4 to 5 years. This will allow expansion of programme to 15 counties over the next 3 years.