The Third Shenzhen Project Care, a citywide campaign to help those in need, commenced yesterday and will run through March 28.

With the theme of "harmonious Shenzhen, a world of love," the campaign calls for love and care for the disadvantaged from the city's government and social organizations, as well as from individuals.

More than 50 government bodies, charity organizations and business associations will co-organize the event. These include the CPC committees of Shenzhen's six districts, the first time that these district authorities have organized the campaign.

The campaign will feature over 400 events, such as donations for children affected with thalassemia, free cataract operations for the poor, and help for the disabled.

"Project Care has set up a platform, where social forces accumulate to help the needed. It has enhanced the city's solidarity as well as its level of civilization," said Li Yizhen, deputy secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPC, at the campaign's opening ceremony yesterday.

The ceremony reviewed the achievements of Project Care in the previous two years. It also invited to the stage some previous Project Care participants, including philanthropist Cong Fei and blood-donor Gao Min, whose stories moved many members of the audiences to tears.

A highlight of the Third Project Care will be special care and services for Shenzhen's migrant workers, who are an important community in this harmonious society.

Some 200,000 copies of "care maps" have been printed and will be distributed among migrant workers, according to Wang Ying from the project's organizing office yesterday.

The brochures provide useful information to help migrant workers in Shenzhen, and include the contacts for reliable job agencies, hotlines for safeguarding rights, and information about labor regulations.

"The brochures will be distributed free of charge in the city's industrial areas, bus and metro stations and in big factories," said Wang.

Drawing from the experience of a medical services and insurance system for migrant workers in Bao'an and Longgang, the Project Care will extend the system to all the districts, according to Wang. The system provides affordable medical services and insurance for migrant workers.

The Third Project Care also highlights the role of charity in the society, with emphasis on non-governmental charity organizations, and charity events held by companies.

"We have referred to the mode of charity operations in the West, for which civil charity forces play an important role. We also regard this as a good way in collecting more social forces. So far we have received positive responses from a lot of enterprises," said Wang.

(Shenzhen Daily December 27, 2005)