Leilei Cai, or Renee, is keen on observing societal development, with a focus on identifying and seeking pathways to solve social issues. Economics, the subject that she is obsessed with, is the method that she uses most often to analyze these problems, triggering her interest to explore the world deeply through an interdisciplinary approach.
Born and raised in Guangzhou, Renee has always received the best educational resources and has contacted with most advanced viewpoints. Studying with the students who have the same educational background as her, she does not realize the real gap of education in different areas even though hearing a lot. With the chance of volunteering teaching, she embarked on a journey to a village in Guizhou, where she learned that due to the poverty, many students, especially girls, went to school at late ages. Due to the lack of teachers, the only school in the village may not be able to offer education to students any more, meaning that more students cannot access school because of longer distances and higher fees. This experience inspired Renee to learn and take action to deal with education and other social issues.
At school, Renee is currently learning AP psychology, physics CM, calculus BC and statistics, and she plans to study economics or business as her major. As the head of academic department in the Economics Club, she helps to organize and propagandize the course of the club, and co-lead the club’s merchandise sales for worthwhile causes. Renee also takes actions to show her concern about the society, including conducting online classes in mathematics for more than 10 students in Xinjiang during Grade 10. Further, she printed and distributed more than 300 booklets of her own designed comics about female safety education to the community.
Looking ahead, Renee wants to concentrate her efforts into solving more global issues in the areas of education equality, poverty alleviation and climate change to create a more harmonious human community.
