The China Children Insurance Foundation (CCIF) under the China Children and Teenagers' Fund (CCTF) launched a charity campaign at the beginning of 2013, to provide critical illness insurance to 30,000 orphans in southeast China's Fujian Province, northeast China's Liaoning Province, south China's Hainan Province, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region. 

The critical illness insurance card for the orphans [File Photo]

Thousands of netizens, companies and media units donated a total of 1.5 million yuan (US$ 240,600) to help buy the insurance policies.

The charity insurance came into effect beginning January 1, 2013. The insured children will be entitled to receive 100,000 yuan (US$ 16,040) if diagnosed with any of 12 critical illnesses, including cancer, renal failure and severe aplastic anemia.

To date, the CCIF has bought about 650,000 critical illness insurance policies for needy orphans in 20 provinces, municipalities and districts including Henan, Qinghai and Sichuan.

Deputy Director of the CCIF's office Wu Huijuan has said that there are currently about 712,000 orphans in China, 90 percent of who are living with foster families and the rest living in welfare homes.

Wu also appealed to the public to help support the fund, as the term of the charity insurance is only a year and will need to be renewed next year.

(Source:Chinanews/Translated by womenofchina.cn)