The newly established "Spring Rain" project will liberate more than
400,000 disabled children, otherwise condemned to a life deprived
of education.
The project, sponsored by the China Disabled Persons Federation and
China Disabled Persons Welfare Fund, was set up to fund the
education for disabled children in central and western China by
raising money from society.
To
help the project, the Civilization Office of the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of China has announced that it will donate
25 million yuan (US$3 million) for the first phase of the project,
running from 2002 to 2006.
Statistics show that only 77 percent of disabled children,
including the blind, deaf and mentally disabled, have the
opportunity to get the basic compulsory education.
Currently, 320,000 of China's 400,000 disabled children who are not
in school live in central and western China, home to many
impoverished families. The cost of study for a disabled child in a
special school is much higher than that of a healthy child in an
ordinary school.
All the donated money will be held in a special bank account set up
by the federation.
It
will then be allocated to meet the fees of those selected children
and strictly in accordance with the regulations, Liu Xuedong,
spokesman of the federation, said.
For people wanting to make donations, the bank account number of
the "Spring Rain Project" is 086-10-304564722.
(China
Daily September 27, 2002)