Guizhou Bolsters Professional Social Work for Better Inclusion of Emigrants

Northwest China’s Guizhou Province, which possesses the largest number of poor households in China, is planning to relocate 1.42 million poor households in the next five years. The plan emphasizes the establishment a service-oriented Young Communist League (YCL)—with a model of “YCL leader + social worker + volunteer”—to explore an effective way to solve various problems, such as inclusion of emigrants and care for teenagers.

As was revealed at the project promotion meeting, Guizhou YCL members at all levels will promote social work for teenagers, forming an important force in assisting poverty alleviation.

At present, more and more impoverished people—of whom teenagers represent a significant proportion—from Guizhou are being relocated. Emigrating from poor mountain areas, they are given new opportunity. But their new life does not come without quandaries and difficulties, such as cutting classes, dropping out of school, a lack of life planning, bad behavior, poverty at home, and unhealthy family relationships.

In order to resolve these problems, the Guizhou YCL with the joint help and guidance of many departments—including YCL China and the Ministry of Civil Affairs—established a special fund and launched a three-year pilot project, “Hope for Tomorrow, Care for Teenagers,” to provide care for impoverished teenagers in Huishui county. This project enables professional and influential entities in society to participate in and carry out projects dedicated to helping impoverished teenagers by various means, including government purchasing services, venture philanthropy, and direct funding. The project will also serve as an entry point for exploring how to solve problems in social governance and for realizing targeted poverty alleviation by providing services for teenagers.

A total of 1,095 households and 4,684 people have been relocated to the Mingtian community in Huishui County. Of these, 742 are registered poor households, housing a total of 3,115 people. The Haohuahong Social Work Service Center is located in the beautiful community of Mingtian. With the support of the Guangzhou CYL school and of the Zhengyang Social Service Center in the Fanyu district, the community actively provides professional service for poor-household teenagers in emigrant communities and for left-behind children in rural areas, promoting the inclusion of emigrant teenagers, marginalized youth, and other at-risk groups.

Mei Feng, director of the Coordinating Supervision Office of the Youth Rights Protection Department of the YCL, explained that the Hope for Tomorrow project introduces quality resources from outside the province to train local social workers in helping teenagers. She also highlighted that the project promotes the establishment of grassroots YCLs with the model of “YCL leader + social worker + volunteer,” and explores an effective model for social governance and inclusion of emigrant teenagers.