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. Chen Kenan is among them.

With help from the Spring Bud Project, and a caring mother, Chen Kenan, from Linzhou, in Central China's Henan Province, has grown from a disadvantaged girl into a rural teacher, who is committed to spreading love and warmth to underprivileged children.

Chen was born in Gucheng, a village in Linzhou, in 1999. When she was 12, Chen dropped out of school to help take care of her father, who was seriously ill and bedridden. A year later, her father passed away. Chen and her grandmother had to subsist on the basic living allowance provided by the local government. With the support of her grandmother, Chen returned to school to complete her middle-school education.

In 2014, a women's group, called Caring Mothers, was established in Linzhou to care for orphans and disadvantaged children. The same year, several caring mothers in the group, including Yang Yufeng, visited Chen and her grandmother. With the consent of Chen's grandmother, Yang invited Chen to live with her own family.

Chen says she was lucky to receive deep love and tremendous support from Yang and other charity-minded people, and to become a beneficiary of the Spring Bud Project. Chen says there was nothing else she could do but study hard to convey her thanks to them.

To help Chen adapt to her new family environment, Yang encouraged Chen to stay in touch with her grandmother regularly, attend charitable activities with her two brothers (Yang's sons), take turns doing the household cleaning, and develop good personal hygiene habits.

Gradually, Chen became more confident and cheerful, and she also made progress in her studies. Chen always says she is deeply grateful to Yang and her family for their selfless love and assistance. "I feel lucky to have become her daughter. Her family is mine, too," Chen says. Meanwhile, other caring mothers lent a helping hand to Chen when she needed help.

Chen's grandmother passed away in 2016. Two years later, Chen was admitted to Anyang Normal University. Yang and several other caring mothers saw Chen off to school at the beginning of the academic year. Without their support, Chen says she would never have made it to university. "The caring mothers have given me so much care and support. Because of them, my heart is always full of strength," she says.

After Chen graduated from Anyang Normal University, in 2022, she returned to her hometown and became a rural teacher at Nanzhuangcun Primary School, in Hengshui, a town in Linzhou.

"I choose to stay in the countryside because I wanted to pass on the love that caring mothers gave me to rural children who need love. I want to become a caring teacher, and a caring mother," Chen says.

During the summer of 2023, Chen formally became one of the caring mothers. To better serve the children, Chen has sought advice from other charity-minded mothers, and she has endeavored to provide the children with both material and emotional support.

Linzhou Women's Federation has provided Chen, and other caring mothers, with support and comprehensive guidance, to help them carry out their charity work. Under the federation's guidance, psychological experts have been invited to give mental counseling to needy children.

The Caring Mothers women's group was upgraded into Caring Mothers Association in 2021. There are more than 200 caring mothers in Linzhou. These women have supported more than 280 children throughout the years. They have established pair-up assistance partnerships with 105 orphans and children who live in difficulties.

Source: CCTF

(Women of China English Monthly February 2024)