Poverty Alleviation, ACWF Is in Action

Children (front) funded by CCTF's Spring Bud project [cctf.org.cn]

Educational Aid

Under the ACWF's leadership, the China Children and Teenagers' Foundation (CCTF) has raised 1.92 billion yuan (U.S. $297 million) in funding and provided aid to 12 million children from impoverished families.

In 1989, the CCTF launched and organized the implementation of a social welfare project named 'Spring Bud Project' to help dropout girls in poverty-stricken areas return to school.

With a view to strengthening the quality of education and helping the Spring Bud girls obtain some skills and be self-reliant, the CCTF has established a special fund to run technical training courses.

Over the past 20 years, the Spring Bud Project has helped over two million young women return to school and acquire relevant work skills. The vast majority of these young women now support themselves financially, while many others have set up their own businesses. The project has received broad recognition, including the China Charity Award and a nomination for the UN Millennium Development Goal Award.

The Spring Bud Project includes four main actions which are the Spring Bud Project-Student Aid Action, the Spring Bud Project -Talents Cultivation Action, the Spring Bud Project-Employment Action, and the Special Action in Caring for Left-behind Children.

The Spring Bud Project-Student Aid Action provides living subsidies for needy primary and middle school students and improves teaching conditions of schools in poverty-stricken regions. The Spring Bud Project-Talents Cultivation Action provides financial aid in the form of tuition and living expenses for rural girls in high schools and colleges. The Spring Bud Project -Employment Action conducts practical technical training among older girls in rural areas. The Spring Bud Project - Special Action in Caring for Left-behind Children donates kindergartens, school dormitories and ‘Homes for Left-behind Children' to children in rural areas whose parents have left them to work in the cities.

Under the Spring Bud Project, there are now over 1,000 Spring Bud schools, 6,300 Spring Bud classes, and 30 skills training centers all across China.

Cervical and Breast Cancer Screening

Since 2009, the ACWF and the then-Ministry of Health, currently the Health and Family Planning Commission, have jointly implemented the Rural Cervical and Breast Cancer Screening Project, a free health program that enables early diagnosis and provides improved access for rural women to medical treatment.

The ultimate aim of the project is to reduce mortality rates through prevention and to improve medical services to rural women through the joint efforts of concerned organizations.

Between 2009 and 2011, a total of 562 million yuan (U.S. $91.77 million) was allocated for the project. This was applied to screening 11.69 million rural women for cervical cancer and 1.46 million for breast cancer.

In April 2011, the ACWF established a special fund for impoverished women to receive medical treatment, and also opened a public welfare platform to raise money to expand the special fund.

Additionally, the Ministry of Finance earmarks 50 million yuan (U.S. $8.17 million) for the medical treatment of cancer in women every year.

Through its charity platform, the ACWF has raised social funds, benefiting 10,815 people. In addition, 9,900 impoverished women diagnosed with the diseases received per capita subsidies of 10,000 yuan (U.S. $1,633) for medical treatment, bringing the total number of subsided women up to 10,450.

The year 2012 marked the beginning of a new three-year round for the project with a goal of "providing free cervical cancer screening to 50 million rural women and free breast cancer screening to 6 million rural women from 2012 to 2015".

ACWF's Future Plans

In the future, the ACWF will continue poverty relief in several aspects, according to Cui Yu, Professor of the ACWF and a member of AWCF Secretariat.

Women's federations will raise women's skills through training and education. The ACWF aims to give disadvantaged rural women practical skill training, to select women who are able to lead their fellow villagers to raise themselves out of poverty and improve the working skills of women's federations' staff members in order to raise women's abilities to shake off poverty in poverty-stricken areas.

The ACWF will promote its free-interest small loan program and help disadvantaged women tackle funding problems. Besides, it will lead women to develop hand-knitting projects and help women find jobs in their hometowns.

On the present basis of its women's exemplary farms, the ACWF will increase its financial support in poverty-stricken counties to improve women's living conditions.

While integrating its current poverty relief projects, the ACWF will focus on surveys and investigations to learn about women's real needs. From the point of social gender, the ACWF will pay home visits, distribute questionnaires and hold seminars to examine the lives, causes of poverty and the development needs of women in poverty-stricken areas.

(Source: Jilin Women's Federation, scfpym.gov.cn and women.org.cn/Translated and edited by Women of China)