A project aimed at giving 1 million landless farmers free job
training over the next decade gets under way in earnest this
year.
Thanks to a donation from a Hong Kong non-profit-making
foundation, the Warmth Project will begin training courses in 20
counties in China's poverty-stricken areas. It will help farmers
who lost their farmland as a result of urbanization.
Lee Ka-Kit, speaking on behalf of Hong Kong Pei Hua Education
Foundation, said that the foundation would donate at least 100
million yuan (US$12 million) to the National Association of
Vocational Education, the project sponsor.
Lee, a member of the 10th National Committee of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) from Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region, said the foundation was glad to help
farmers.
He added Hong Kong's entrepreneurs were all willing to support
the central government's policy of building a new socialist
countryside.
The Warmth Project was tried out late last year in four counties
in
Yunnan Province and the
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
To date, the project has trained nearly 1,000 farmers in the
four counties, according to Chen Guangqing, director of the
National Association of Vocational Education.
"We welcome the mode of made-to-order training, because it is
easier to help farmers land jobs and get paid," Chen said.
Nearly 100 farmers in Longzhou County of the Guangxi Zhuang
Autonomous Region in south China, who received the training, have
already started working at factories and restaurants, with stable
incomes.
More than 350 farmers in Menglian County, 201 farmers in Hekou
County of Yunnan, and 181 farmers in Jingxi County of Guangxi have
completed training in sectors such as tourism, catering, mechanical
and electrical maintenance, and clothes making.
The Warmth Project is a social welfare undertaking that gathers
funds to train the disadvantaged group to improve their skills and
get better-paid jobs.
Hong Kong Pei Hua Education Foundation has helped train more
than 10,000 officials in the country's ethnic regions in the past
two decades.
(China Daily March 11, 2006)