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| 一笔小额捐款为贫困的农村孩子做了一顿饭.Students at Xinhai primary school in Zhaoyang district of Zhaotong, a city in Yunan province, have lunch in the school canteen on Sept 26, 2011. A nutritious breakfast project run by NGOs is donating food to the students. |
一笔小额捐款为贫困的农村孩子做了一顿饭.
ZHAOTONG, Yunnan - After buying a big meal of fried chicken, salad and ice cream at a KFCstore, Beijing father Sun Zaiguang gave an extra one-yuan (16 cents) note to his daughter andencouraged her to donate the money to a good cause.
Sun did this just to cultivate his child's kindness for other people, but he was not aware that themoney would finally turn into milk and eggs for some rural students who had never even tastedmilk.
The 22,000 students who benefit from these donations live in a remote mountain area inSouthwest China's Yunnan.
The area's high altitude and changeable weather mean that the only food plants that grow thereare cold-resistant crops like potato and corn, and these are what the people there must live on.
Song Zhaoqin is now 10 years old, but she looks as small as an average 6-year-old in the city.
"I had never had breakfast until March when the school started to provide an egg and some milkevery morning," Song said. "I had never drunk milk before, nor had my grandmother."
Song lives with her grandmother, Zhang Jiaying, in Zhaoyang district of Zhaotong. Everymorning, Zhang used to cook some potatoes for Song to take to school for lunch.
"Few students eat breakfast, partly because they can't afford it," said Zhang Zhengfu, principalof the Xinhai primary school that takes about 300 students, aged from 6 to 12, from the nearbymountainous areas.
"Before we built our own dining hall at school, the students often brought cooked potatoes forlunch."
The school started receiving donations of milk and eggs from the China Foundation for PovertyAlleviation (CFPA) in March 2010.
The foundation started cooperating with YUM! Restaurants (China) in 2008, with the fast foodgiant helping to raise money for the nutritious breakfast project at its stores, which include KFCand Pizza Hut. Each breakfast costs about 2 yuan.
"We raised nearly 15 million yuan ($2.3 million) in 2010 for this project to sponsor 22,000students in 80 primary schools we chose among the eight poorest counties in Yunnan," saidWang Luowei, a program manager with the foundation.
"After customers order food, waiters in the fast food stores ask them if they want to donate oneyuan to poor students," Wang said.
The project began in Southwest China's Sichuan province in 2008 and spread to Yunnan in2010.
When Fan Kaijian, deputy director of the education bureau in Zhaoyang district, heard of theproject, he saw a glimmer of hope that the children might be able to stay at school.
"Zhaoyang is one of the poorest areas in Yunnan, especially in the mountain areas," Fan said. "All the schools I chose for the project are in remote areas, where the annual income of a familyof five is no more than 2,000 yuan, and where people have never eaten eggs and milk."
According to Fan, many parents in these regions force their children to drop out of school at anearly age to earn money in cities.
"A meal subsidy is a reason for students to stay at school," Fan said. "After all, the children onlyhave potatoes to eat at home."
However, Fan worries that once the breakfast project ends, the students will be forced back tohaving only two meals a day.
"I hope the government can shoulder the expense," he said. "There are 150,000 primary andmiddle school students in Zhaoyang, which means a cost of 300,000 yuan for breakfast everyday, and the education bureau cannot afford that much money."
According to Wang, limited funds mean that the breakfast project lasts no more than two yearsat each place.
Ma Guansheng, director of the Institute for Nutrition and Food Safety, also thinks thegovernment should provide nutritious breakfasts to students in rural areas.
"According to my research, the height and weight of children in rural and urban areas are quitedifferent, especially in West China," Ma said.
"And children in rural areas also have higher rates of anemia, which can influence theirintellectual development.
"Now some Chinese NGOs are implementing nutritious breakfast projects in Yunnan, Guizhouand Gansu provinces and Ningxia Hui autonomous region. But the whole rural region still needsmore money than the amount that any single social organization can raise.
"So it is the government's responsibility to increase its input to end hunger among children inthese regions."
