Officials unveil the board of the Children's Happy Home center. [Women of China/Fan Wenjun]

The China Children and Teenagers' Foundation (CCTF) and Evergrande Group held a ceremony on September 12 in a village in central China's Hunan Province, announcing the opening of a Children's Happy Home center.

The center, located in Qingshan Village in Huangjing Township, Shaoyang County, aims to provide a number of services and bring an overall happier life to local "left-behind" children—those whose parents have left them to live in far-away cities in search of better employment.

The establishment of the center follows the publication of a report by state news agency Xinhua in mid-August this year, which said that 123 children in the township lived in families where only one parent was present.

Hearing about the news, the CCTF immediately sent a work group to the local region to examine the situation. Learning about the children's hardships and psychological counseling requirements, the foundation launched a charity event to mobilize social powers to help these children regain motherly love and family affection.

At the launch ceremony, Wang Ran, a left-behind girl in fifth grade studying in the village's primary school, smiled happily as she had been allocated a "loving mother" who will help her with her homework and household chores every week. After school, she can come to the center to read, play or chat with her "loving mother".

Wang's own mother has left home, while her father has a chronic illness, leaving her to live with her grandparents.

As a cheerful and lively girl who is good at her studies, Wang has always been head pupil in her class. She said she hopes to become a doctor after growing up.

During the event, Chen Xiurong, vice-president of CCTF, encouraged Wang to study hard, grow up happily, and realize her dreams through her own efforts.

After the event, officials from the local government and women's federation, as well as representatives from Evergrande Group and netizens, visited the center together. They then visited the homes of some local left-behind children.

Donations from Various Social Circles

The center was established in such a short period of time thanks to donations from various social fields, mainstream media's publicity and the support of women's federations at different levels.

Within half a month, Evergrande Group donated 1 million yuan (U.S. $157,000) for the establishment of eight Children's Home centers and training sessions on protecting children from injuries.

The foundation also called on users of the Tencent-run Twitter-like app QQ, as well as its web portal, to donate funds. Within three days, netizens donated more than 400,000 yuan (U.S. $63,000) to the foundation, which will be used to fund the children's tuition and life necessities.

The foundation has cooperated with its new media support partner the Philanthropy Channel of sina.com to promote the event among netizens, calling on the public to show their concern to left-behind kids.

In addition, the foundation, along with Hunan Women's Federation and Shaoyang Women's Federation, called upon local loving families and women to care for the children from single-parent families one-on-one. They also called upon volunteers from the local government and enterprises to offer psychological counseling services to the youngsters.

About the Project

The Children's Happy Home charity project was launched by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) and CCTF in 2014, to establish places which would offer services in education, life, caring, safety protection, psychological counseling, recreation and more, to left-behind children in China's rural areas.

As of July this year, a total of 349 such centers have been established across the country. Each center is equipped with desks, chairs, more than 3,000 books for children of different ages, toys, a television with DVD player, one digital piano, two computers with video chat, and more than 100 sets of sports gear. The foundation will supplement the relevant resources for five consecutive years.

According to the latest survey conducted by the ACWF, there are over 61 million left-behind children in rural areas living under the care of relatives or by themselves. This group accounts for 37.7 percent of all children in rural areas and 21.9 percent of all children in China. The overall figure has increased by 2.4 million since 2005.

From the perspective of family structure, nearly half (47 percent) of all left-behind children grow up with both parents having gone to work in urban areas. Among those children, a third live with their grandparents and over 2 million face living by themselves./span>

A lack of emotional support and everyday monitoring from parents commonly leads to psychological problems. Furthermore, infringement on basic physical rights and interests are commonplace, especially in regards to the sexual abuse of girls. In addition, injury and even death caused by incidents such as drowning, or road traffic accidents have been reported.

(Women of China)