Editor's Note

With the care of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, and under the leadership of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), the China Children and Teenagers' Fund (CCTF) launched the Spring Bud Project in 1989, to improve the education of girls from disadvantaged families. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, in 2012, CCTF has implemented the Spring Bud Project — Dream of Future Action, and it has conducted various activities focused on girls' education, safety and health. For more than 30 years, the Spring Bud Project has offered care and support to about 4.2 million in-need girls. After they receive support from the project, the Spring Bud girls never forget to give back to society. With love and concrete actions, the girls have demonstrated the Spring Bud spirit of unremitting self-improvement, striving for excellence, developing stronger virtues and pursuing better lives. Women of China introduced a section, Spring Bud Blooms, to share stories about Spring Bud girls who have grown up and become contributing members of society, and to encourage society to care for the development of girls. Bao Xinxin is among them.

Bao Xinxin conducts an experiment. [CCTF]

Bao Xinxin, a beneficiary of the Spring Bud Project, and a graduate student at Jilin Agricultural University, is committed to living up to the expectations of charity-minded individuals, and to using professional knowledge to ensure the country's food safety.

Bao was born into an ordinary family in Kulun Banner, in Tongliao, a city in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

When she was 13, her mother was paralyzed, due to cerebral thrombosis, and that left her father as the family's sole wage earner.

It was a huge burden for Bao's father to earn enough money to cover his wife's medical bills and the tuition fees for both Bao and her brother. Therefore, their relatives and friends often lent the family a helping hand.

In 2014, Bao began receiving financial aid from the Spring Bud Project when she was a student at Kulun No. 2 Middle School.

Her father often told her to study hard, to remain grateful for the people, from all social sectors, who offered care and benevolence, and to meet their expectations through her excellent performance at school.

Bao won scholarships twice during her three years at high school. She says the Spring Bud Project provided her with the strength to move ahead, and to strive to make a difference, for both her and her family, through her personal efforts.

During the autumn of 2017, Bao was accepted into the School of Food Science and Engineering, at Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University, in Jilin, a city in Northeast China's Jilin Province.

Bao Xinxin [CCTF]

Bao initially didn't have a clear understanding of the importance of her major. Under the guidance of her teachers, Bao's perception of the major started to change. She began learning more about food safety issues, and she eventually realized the importance of what she was studying.

Bao studied hard, and she participated in both academic and practical activities, as she hoped to make practical use of what she had learned.

Bao later decided to continue her education, after she realized the more she learned, the more eager she was to conduct in-depth research. In 2020, during her third year at university, she began preparing for the national postgraduate-entrance examinations.

Bao passed the examinations, with high scores, and she was admitted to Jilin Agricultural University, in Changchun, in Jilin Province.

Her new life, at Jilin Agricultural University, has provided Bao with opportunities to embrace knowledge, at a deeper level, and to inject fresh vitality into her studies.

Given her extraordinary performance, Bao was included in a training program under the Institute of Agro-Food Technology, under the Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Bao has persisted in reading professional journals, in both Chinese and English, and in studying experimental cases and doing experiments involving the cultivation, selection and appraisal of certain strains.

"We conduct research on fermented beverages using strains, and we explore the performance of the beverages through trial and error," Bao says.

Bao says her team has been researching a kind of beverage that may help relieve liver damage from a high-fat diet.

"Although it is usually a long journey for researchers to roll out new products … I believe nothing is impossible, as long as we have determination and resilience, and we dare to make a comeback after failure," Bao says.

She vows to continuously carry forward the spirit of the Spring Bud Project, and to integrate her personal endeavors with a dedication to ensuring food safety.

(Women of China English Monthly)