Charity Initiative to Assist Rural Children Launched at CWU

Participants at the opening ceremony [China Women's University]

A ceremony was held on the campus of China Women's University (CWU) on July 8 to mark the opening of a charity event, in which college students are expected to spend their summer holidays together with rural "left-behind" children in their hometowns and work hard to enrich their lives.

The charity initiative was co-launched by Beijing Yuanwang Charitable Foundation, China Children and Teenagers' Fund, the youth.cn and 50 domestic higher institutes, such as Peking University and Tsinghua University, under the financial assistance of the Republic of Korea-based LG Chem Ltd.

The university has attached great importance to voluntary services, which have become key channels for its students to receive ideological and political education and traditional Chinese virtues in their daily lives, Ren Cuiru, deputy secretary of CWU Party Committee and secretary of CWU Commission for Discipline Inspection, said in her speech at the opening ceremony.

Ren introduced that the CWU has been involved in the voluntary scheme since its fifth round and received a number of awards and titles for its achievements and contributions in relevant work. So far, over 200 college students from the university have been engaged in it over the past years.

She called on all participants in the voluntary program to demonstrate their positive images in the observance of core socialist values and make their own contributions to social progress and the realization of the Chinese dream.

Role models from thousands of volunteers in previous rounds of the initiative talked with this year's attendees about their experiences and achievements. They pledged that they would contribute their efforts to further promoting the program's popularity amongst the public and helping more people benefit from it in the future.

According to organizers, a total of 9,000 college students had taken part in the charity project's previous nine rounds and provided nearly 200,000 rural children with voluntary services in the process.

This year, the initiative has drawn the participation of 1,000 college students from Peking University and other higher educational institutions, who will send footballs, stationery, books, calligraphy copybooks and water to target children as required when they return to their birthplaces in rural areas.

In addition, they are expected to work with their teenage partners under the scheme of one-on-one assistance to create a joint painting, recommend high school graduates from impoverished families to continue their academic studies in Beijing, and set up solar power lights in the courtyards of beneficiaries.

Performers at the opening ceremony. [China Women's University]

(Source: China Women's University/Translated and edited by Women of China)