Zhao Donghua, vice president and a member of the Secretariat of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), attended the opening ceremony of 20 "Children's Happy Homes" in Zhanjiang, south China's Guangdong Province, on April 3, 2014. Following the opening ceremony, Zhao, who is also vice president of China Children and Teenagers' Foundation (CCTF), inspected the local area's work on children and family education.

The "Children's Happy Homes" in Zhanjiang were established with a donation of one million yuan (U.S. $161,000) from the CCTF to enhance the care services provided to local left-behind children, whose parents have left them to work in big cities, often thousands of miles away. In addition to computers, books and recreational equipment purchased for these Homes, the donated money will also be used to fund relevant activities that will be held for left-behind children over the next three years. The overall goal of the donation project is to create a warm and happy environment for local left-behind children to grow up in.

With China's rapid urbanization, more and more people have migrated to work in other places, some of whom are unable to take their children with them. Many children are living at home with a single parent, or are being taken care of by their grandparents or other relatives. The number of left-behind children has kept on steadily increasing and their plight has aroused people's attention in recent years.

Guangdong Province has the fourth largest number of left-behind children in China. The number of left-behind children in this province accounts for 7.18 percent of the total throughout the country. In Zhanjiang alone there are more than 100,000 left-behind children. The opening of these "Children's Happy Homes" in Zhanjiang is expected to provide a better environment for the growth of local left-behind children.

After the opening ceremony, Zhao also inspected the children's work and family education work in Tangbo Village of Potou District in Zhanjiang.

(Source: cctf.org.cn/ Translated and edited by Women of China)