Cadres with Tongzi Women's Federation recently arranged for doctors, affiliated with maternal and children's hospitals and healthcare centers, at the township and village levels (in Tongzi, a county in Southwest China's Guizhou Province), to promote implementation of both the children's nutritional-improvement program and the women's cancer-screening project. The event was part of Tongzi's endeavors to help residents solve difficulties in their lives.

Under the program, the federation and the medical institutions supply free nutritional packages to 6- to 36-month-old toddlers in Tongzi's poverty-stricken areas. Organizers implemented the cancer-screening project to help rural women (in Tongzi) raise their awareness about the importance of healthcare, and to detect the "two cancers" (cervical and breast cancer) early, so afflicted women can receive timely medical treatment.

In 2013, Guizhou began implementing the children's nutritional-improvement program, as one of the important poverty-alleviation initiatives in its poverty -stricken areas . By 2018, Guizhou had taken the lead, in China, in implementing the program in its 66 poverty-stricken counties. Tongzi began implementing the program in June 2018. By June 2021, the county had supplied free nutritional packages to 53,095 toddlers.

To promote implementation of the cancer-screening project, Tongzi during the past decade has regularly provided free screening for the "two cancers." Doctors with Tongzi Maternal and Child Healthcare Hospital have visited women, who have been at risk of contracting cervical and/or breast cancer, to urge the women to receive more physical check-ups.

(Women of China English Monthly August 2021 issue)