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Montage of images showing the wide range of work carried out by Mission Overseas

Amity Foundation (AF)

Amity logoThe Amity Foundation(AF), an independent Chinese voluntary organisation, was created in 1985 on the initiative of Chinese Christians to promote education, social services, health, and rural development from China’s coastal provinces in the east to the minority areas of the west.

Abiding by the principle of mutual respect in faith, Amity builds friendship with people at home and abroad. Through the promotion of holistic development and public welfare, Amity serves society, benefits the people, and strives to promote world peace.

In this way, Amity:

  • Contributes to China’s social development and openness to the outside world.

  • Makes Christian involvement and participation in meeting the needs of society more widely known to the Chinese people.

  • Serves as a channel for people-to-people contact and the ecumenical sharing of resources.

The Amity Printing Press, located in China, plans to print 18 million Bibles in 2009.

Amity's News Service, which communicates the news and views of the China Christian Council, carries up-to-date news of the Church in China along with relevant articles about the life and witness of the Church and Christians in various parts of the country.


Amity Teachers' Programme

The Amity Teachers' Programme (ATP) is a project through which people from around the world are recruited and sponsored by church agencies working in partnership with Amity and sent to China to teach English, Japanese, or German.

A rural classroom sceneA typical Amity placement is in a college which prepares future middle school teachers, usually in a small or medium-sized city. In these schools, Amity teachers most often teach oral skills courses and/or writing, although there is variation from school to school.

ATP emphasises Christian service, and encourages Christian participants to bear witness to their faith through their teaching work and through participation with Chinese churches.

While teachers interact with Chinese teachers, students and Chinese people at large while they live in China, Amity sees the primary contribution of the foreign teachers in China as arising from their teaching work.

The financial support for teachers comes from overseas sending agencies which work in partnership with Amity, so potential candidates must apply to one of these for sponsorship. The sponsoring agency covers costs for orientation, transportation, insurance and, through Amity, provides most of the salary (the rest comes from the school).

 

PCI involvement with AMITY

An Amity teacher and his studentsOver the past couple of decades, a number of PCI members have served with ATP for varying periods of time.

While we are supportive of anyone who may be considering service with AMITY in China, the application process is not handled by us but by Christians Abroad, with interviews conducted by members of the British & Irish Amity Teachers' Group (BIATG).

Those who go to teach in China with AMITY are sent under the auspices of BIATG, whose support package includes CELTA course fees (if necessary), return air fares, full Chinese salary with UK supplement, medical and national insurance cover, a resettlement grant and a preparation course. 

See News Item for information on current opportunities for service in China as an English language teacher with Amity.

This page was last updated: 25/06/10
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