Spring Bud Project Wins Special Charity Award

The Spring Bud Project, a social welfare program mobilizing social forces to help dropout girls return to school and to improve teaching conditions in poverty-stricken areas, won the CCTV Annual Special Charity Award at the 6th CCTV Charity Night welfare publicity campaign.

The Spring Bud Project was launched in 1989 by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund (CCTF), under the leadership of the All-China Women's Federation. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the project.

Zhu Xisheng, Secretary-General of the CCTF, Zhang Xin, President of the Women's Federation of Taihe County (in Anhui Province), and Wu Ruiping, a teacher at the Baiyun Township Central Primary School in Rongshui County, Southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, received the award as the representatives of the Spring Bud Project.

Wu was head teacher of the project's first girl class and the first Hongyao girl class in Guangxi. In 2006, she was named as among the top ten Spring Bud teachers in Guangxi. Over the past three decades, Wu taught many girls at the Spring Bud classes, including more than 300 in Hongyao County.

Zhang started working at the Women's Federation of Taihe County, Anhui Province, 27 years ago. She made enormous efforts to promote the project across the county for years, helping raise nearly three million yuan (US$42.09 million) and supporting 3,300 impoverished girls in the county to complete their studies.

Zhu, Secretary-General of the CCTF, said the Spring Bud Project has continued to innovate and diversify its support for girls in need, including protecting girls, caring for left-behind girls, funding for girls in both compulsory education and in high school and university, training for the Spring Bud teachers and providing vocational education to teenage girls.

Three Spring-Bud girl representatives who have received or are receiving support from the project attended the event. Thanks to the project, they got the opportunity of returning to school to receive education.

So far, the Spring Bud Project has aided more than 3.69 million impoverished girls to return to school, built 1,811 Spring Bud schools, provided vocational education and training to more than 527,000 girls, and compiled 2.17 million safety manuals for school girls. A large number of Spring Bud students have become professionals, making their own contributions to society.

(Women of China)