The first phase of a program aimed at teaching the Chinese language to youth in Thar has been completed with heartening results. A top official of Sino Sindh Resources Private Limited, a local subsidiary of Shanghai Electric, said that dozens of boys and girls in Thar Block-1 are getting proficient in the Chinese language. Children of local villagers in Thar Block-1 are being taught the Chinese language by qualified teachers under a long-term programme initiated by SSSL. The project which SSRL is carrying out in collaboration with the Confucius Institute, University of Karachi was inaugurated a few months ago. The first session has been recently completed and the results are quite heartening. Both boys and girls have now become familiar with the Chinese language. The second session is already underway and will conclude next month. To encourage the students, trophies and medals and gifts for top ten will be distributed during the second session. “Such initiatives are the need of times as the local youth are being equipped with an additional skill which will help them in establishing themselves in the future,” commented Li Jigen, SSRL’s CEO. “We have initiated this project to help local kids learn the Chinese language. This skill will be an added tool for them once they enter professional life. “Dedicated Chinese teachers from Confucius Institute have been employed to impart Chinese language to local kids. These classes are helping the local residents of Thar in overcoming the language barrier,” he added. A total of 30 boys and 30 girls from local schools of Thar are attending these classes. The classes are being held in three different schools. On weekends the teachers are teaching the Chinese language to local employees of SSRL, which is working on a Coal-electricity integration project in Block 1 of Thar Coalfield. It is a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) priority implementation project.