Migrant labour makes glorious media

We travelled to Pi Village in the rural periphery of Beijing, about 40 minutes drive, to visit a migrant workers’ organization engaged in community media. Pi Village has some 1500 native people and around 8000 migrant workers. It is also the base for an effective and independent labour NGO called Migrant Workers’ Home. We were accompanied by Bu Wei, a media scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and her research assistant, Peter. We met with the Director of Migrant Workers’ Home, Sun Heng.

There are around 200 million migrant workers in China. They have played a key role in the economic growth of the country. Under the hukou system there is an institutionalised rural-urban divide which discourages rural migration to urban areas. It operates through a geographical registration system which excludes rural migrants from publicly provided housing, welfare and educational services in urban areas. To assure their education many children are left behind, the so-called “left behind children” to attend school in their rural home community. Others come with their parents but must rely on informal provision or illegally established schools for their education. Migrant Workers Home was founded to support migrant workers in Pi village through self-help, education and cultural activities.

Sun Heng says: “The purpose is to help migrant workers, to address their difficulties like how to find a job, how to find a house to live and how to protect their rights such as ensuring that the migrant workers get paid when the bosses don’t want to pay them.”

“We value the migrant workers culture because when migrants move to a new place they experience culture shock. The migrants need to protect their own culture because the mainstream media overlook their culture, so we have established some community media productions like a magazine, short films about migrant workers and a website. On the website we are able to publish our CDs with recording of our songs and music.”

The organization has four types of media activity– formal publishing (books and pamphlets), magazines (a monthly for Pi Village, and a magazine for migrant workers), music CDs and a website. They also have a band and a popular theatre troupe. They would like to establish community television, possibly using the local cable system.

New Worker Art Troupe
http://www.dashengchang.org.cn/