Ms. Heidi Hu (left), Director of CCIF management committee, hand over the insurance cards

beneficiary children representatives on the donation ceremony

May 21st, 2009, Beijing. In a donating ceremony, more than 60,000 children aged 3-15 years in Yu County, Hebei province, will be benefited by a charity donation for the coming year. The tiny impoverished county in the mountainous areas 282 kilometers west of Beijing is the first place to benefit from an ambitious plan by the China Children and Teenagers’ Fund (CCTF) to protect millions of children in China against critical illnesses and severe injuries.

In an effort to maximize the impact of philanthropy donation raised to save children with critical illnesses, the CCTF has set up the China Children Insurance Foundation (CCIF) to provide insurance protections rather than traditional cash donation to those sick children. With a donation of RMB 20 Yuan (USD $3), CCIF provides an insurance protection of RMB 100,000 Yuan (~USD $15,000) to an insured child against critical illnesses/severe injuries such as leukemia, severe renal failure (uremia), severe burn, and double/single permanent total blindness. This charity program aims at offering universal benefit to tens of millions of children in China. The 60,000 children in Yu County are the first group to benefit, with protection coverage for one year starting from June 1st, 2009. CCIF also plans to help about 570,000 orphans who have registered with the Civil Affairs authorities in China. With professional services by Mingya Insurance Brokers’ Co. Ltd., a startup brokers’ house founded by a group of young entrepreneurs, CCIF is able to strike good deals with insurers in the market after a number of rounds of bidding.

The founding of CCIF is an innovative attempt from CCTF, China’s first and most renowned
philanthropy foundation founded in 1981. With insurance mechanism, CCIF is able to amplify donation impact to benefit more people, because the donation to be used as insurance premiums cost much less than the indemnity paid to the children in case of contingencies, or affliction of critical illness in this case. As the cost needed to protect one child is much smaller, many more children will be benefited by a given sum of donation. On the donor’s side, this lowered donation barrier will make more people willing to contribute, as it only takes USD $3 to help. And CCIF offers innovative donation channels such as mobile SMS. The charity program’s mechanism acts before the disaster comes rather than responding passively afterwards.
“We at Yu County are grateful to CCTF China Children Insurance Foundation for the homogenous coverage of all children between 3 and15. It is particularly meaningful as it covers not only local children, but also those of migrating workers. Such donation helps more than 600,000 children to grow healthily as they are protected against critical illnesses,” remarked by Mr. Zhijun Wang, Yu County Chinese Communist Party Secretary.

“We believe that the China Children Insurance Foundation has innovatively transformed charity in three aspects. First it acts before the disaster comes rather than responding passively afterwards. This would stimulate people’s vigilance against children’s tragedies. Second, it turns charity assistance from a temporary initiative to a self-driven and lasting one, as insurance is a sustainable mechanism to protect people. Thirdly, it makes charity donation more meaningful to average people as small amount of donations can now make a meaningful impact for one child. Before you can never offer meaningful help to a child with leukemia on a USD $3 donation. Now with CCIF’s insurance mechanism you can,” commented enthusiastically by Ms. Liying Song, Secretary General of CCTF.

Founded in 2007 by Mingya, with the supports from Mr. Maurice R. Greenberg’s Starr Foundation, CCIF also joins efforts with leading domestic and international firms such as Air China and CITIC Group. By March 31, 2009, CCIF has already completed two batches of benefit distribution covering 41,478 students in 113 schools of 38 districts in three provinces hit by the “5-12” earthquake in 2008. Among them are 1,077 orphans from the earthquake. The distribution work has been continuing and is expected to achieve the goal of covering 60,000 children from “5-12” earthquake areas the by the end of May.

As part of All-China Women’s Federation, CCTF will receive help from the massive networks of the Women’s Federation to identify those in need and offer a broad-base protection through charity work.