Xu Peifang, 68, a retired engineer who lives in Jing'an
District, Shanghai, might find it easier to pull through these days
when various kinds of aids are pouring in as traditional Chinese
lunar new year is drawing near.
Just days ahead of the
Spring Festival, which falls on January 29, Shanghai Municipal
Disabled Persons' Federation presented 200 yuan (about US$24.66)
gift money to Xu, who huddles in a 25-sq-m flat together with her
husband, also a retired engineer, a daughter and son, both of whom
have been suffering from insanity.
The Party and government organizations at grassroots of Shanghai
have also given a helping hand in the aid-the-needy campaign. Apart
from 200 yuan gift money, officials with the Sanyifang Neighborhood
Committee where Ms Xu lives also bought necessities such as edible
oil for Xu's family.
The Sanyifang Neighborhood Committee of the Communist Party of
China (
CPC) sent each poor family inside the neighborhood a box of
biscuit with money donated by Party members.
"I feel very much warm for being cared for more despite my
retirement," said Xu, a retiree from Shanghai Aviation
Administration, who added neighborhood committee officials often
dropped in her home during festivals, bringing along many
commodities most needed for basic life.
Xu's family is just one of the 7,259 disadvantaged households
wherein senior citizens are overburdened for having to support
their disabled children, information from Shanghai Municipal Bureau
of Civil Affairs.
The municipal government of Shanghai has been operating a
specialized campaign designed to help these disadvantaged families
pull through since February 2002.
Under the campaign, an upward of 3,000 volunteers, most of whom
are laid-off workers, have been organized to form aiding unions
with the above mentioned disadvantaged families so that these
families could get needy support in all seasons.
Similar disadvantaged families in other Chinese cities such as
Beijing, the national capital, and Wuhan, the most important city
on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, have also felt the
sunshines brought along by an array of activities calculated to
create a harmonious society nationwide.
Low-income families in Beijing have been each subsidized by the
municipal government to the standard of 200 yuan, the price of 300
pieces of honeycomb briquettes, during this winter heating
season.
"With the money, we won't be frozen out in the coldest days of
the winter," said 82-year-old Ms. Ma Yiwen, who lives together her
insane son and daughter inside a 10-sq-m bungalow on Shitou Alley
in Dashilan Neighborhood, south to Tian'anmen, the central part of
Beijing.
Down south in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province,
different district and neighborhood committees carefully registered
the number of families in desperate need of help on the basis of a
thorough survey over the well-being of local residents at the order
of the Wuhan City CPC Committee and the city government
So far, some 80,000 poor families, including victims of last
autumn flooding on Hanjiang River and of a winter earthquake taking
place in Jiujiang City of Jiangxi Province, have been given with
12.5 kg of fish, meat, eggs, edible oil and rice free of charge for
the forthcoming Spring Festival.
(Xinhua News Agency January 27, 2006)