Junior School’s SDG Kids Holds Charity Concert for Northern China Leopards

At Dulwich College Beijing, our mission is to empower our students to Live Worldwise. We believe that every student has the potential to make a difference. Our Junior School SDG Kids, whose members comprise students from Years 3 through 6 and students from other neighbouring schools, are a shining example of this.

The group recently held a fundraising performance to help raise awareness about the importance of the Northern China Leopards in our ecosystem and to support the CFCA (China Felid Conservation Alliance), an organisation dedicated to protecting China’s wild cats. The CFCA launched an ambitious program in 2017 aimed at encouraging leopards to return to their previous territories in Beijing, northward from Heshun, where most of them are found. They achieved this by connecting and restoring wildlife corridors previously destroyed and monitoring their progress and the leopards’ journeys through infrared cameras.

“We don’t capture the leopards and bring them because they won’t know where they are,” shared Mingming, one of the members. “So, we want to use natural means to bring them back to Beijing so that they can adjust better as they return to their natural habitat.”

When asked about their beginnings, two of the founders shared how they were inspired by their own parents who were part of the Giving Circle, a group of over 60 organisations in the Wenyuhe area that aims to help those in need and came up with the idea of organising themselves and a few other children together to help protect something they were all passionate about: the environment.

One of the volunteers’ parents was a part of Alashan SEE (Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology) and knew the founder of CFCA. Three years ago, the two organisations banded together to create a foundation called Homing Leopards, whose mission was to help leopards return back to Beijing. Mingming said, “By protecting the leopards, which are the umbrella species, we can protect the whole food chain and help the biodiversity in Beijing.”

Ms Jacinth Gurdon, the Head of Junior School, also added, “I take immense pride in this group of students who embody our mission of LIVE WORLDWISE. Their dedication is evident as they've connected with, cared about, and taken meaningful action for a cause, creating a tangible impact in the field of conservation.”

Learn more about our students’ performance in this piece below by the SDG Kids:

Homing Leopards Fundraising Performance 

by the SDG Kids

The SDG Kids is a group of students that focuses on helping the environment and promotes the United Nation’s SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). The 17 SDGs are a universal footprint to protect people and the planet and guarantee that everyone lives in peace. This is why we named ourselves SDG Kids.

On 21 January, the SDG Kids hosted a concert with CFCA and SEE. We did it to bring awareness to the Northern China leopards. The Northern China leopard is an endangered species that is very important for Beijing’s natural environment. The leopards left their home, Beijing, around 2005 due to poaching and habitat fragmentation. Our goal as the SDG Kids is to acknowledge their current living conditions and help the Northern China leopards come back home to Beijing.

As concerned naturalists, CFCA put on infrared cameras to study the leopards’ situation. Two years ago, the SDG Kids also assisted in the work of putting up the cameras. The cameras don’t just locate the leopards; they also can help CFCA know what to do to help when the leopards are in times of need, like being hunted or perhaps injured. To support their goal, we held a concert and even sold tickets on local ticket-selling platform Damai and used the profits to help buy the cameras for CFCA. We invited professional performers who also performed alongside us, and we wrote the script by ourselves and practised our own part of the concert. We hope that through our efforts, CFCA will be able to buy enough cameras to track more leopards and locate them.

Thanks to the CFCA’s years of hard work, they have managed to locate and get some of the leopards to Hebei already! The leopards will be grandly welcomed when they come home to Beijing. It will be a safer place for them to live, a more familiar recognition for the old, and the young will finally know their true native land. We will continue working with CFCA to ensure a bright future for the leopards and many other living creatures in Beijing's biodiversity. We wish that all the animals will be forever a part of Beijing.