Cinemas help impoverished kids

Wang Zhonglei, co-founder, Huayi Brothers Media Corp. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Next, the charity will return to the primary schools to train more teachers and communicate with students to understand the influence of films, says Wang.

Guo Shoujing, the principal of Jiaohe Primary School in Huining county, Northwest China's Gansu province, says primary schools in rural areas typically have no art or music teachers.

His school uses the cinema as a place to teach students art and music, mostly through movies.

Since the cinema was built in 2014 in Guo's school, they have had lots of film classes.

It was also the first time many of the students from poor families had watched a movie, says Guo.

"The films from different nations enrich the students' imagination. I think imagination is more important than knowledge," says Guo.

Wang Zhongjun, the company's main founder and elder brother of Wang Zhonglei, is a key backer of the Pocket Money Cinema plan.

In the past few years, he has donated about 20 million yuan ($2.96 million), all of which were proceeds from selling paintings to his entrepreneur friends such as Alibaba founder Jack Ma and China's real estate tycoon Xu Jiayin.

The older Wang is a well-known art collector in China who learned painting in his childhood.

He resumed painting as a hobby six years ago when the charity was established.

Many film stars and entrepreneurs have bought his oil paintings to donate money to the charity's plan.

He said last week that when he was on a business trip to Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province, a local entrepreneur bought one of his paintings for more than 1 million yuan, which he donated to the fund.

"The foundation drives me to keep painting," says Wang Zhongjun.

The charity plans to build 100 kindergartens in poor areas to offer free preschool education, especially art education.

Wang Zhongjun says he has just seen the design of the first kindergarten and hopes it will be as effective as their cinema program.

Contact the writer at dengzhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn