Poverty Relief Campaign Offered in 798 Art Zone

A student signs her name in support of the "Poverty Reduction Relay 2012" campaign in Beijing's 798 Art Zone on March 18, 2012. [CnDG by Jiao Meng]

Over 60 young volunteers participated in the launching ceremony of the "Poverty Reduction Relay 2012" charity campaign in Beijing's 798 Art Zone on Sunday.

The campaign was co-organized by China's branch of Youth Assembly at the United Nations and Yinongdai, a P2P lending platform to rural farmers in China. Organizers called the event a warm-up action to the Youth Assembly presentation at the UN in August.

The volunteers answered a call-to-action notice on Renren.com, a Chinese social networking website popular among teenagers and college students. Within four days, the notice was relayed over 50,000 times, according to a Youth Assembly employee.

The 60 participants were divided into six teams, each was assigned the task of introducing poverty relief efforts, particularly the development of micro credits in China, to passersby, collecting wish cards from them, and inviting them to take photos with the "loving heart," a heart-shaped sign decorated with pictures of rural Chinese living in poverty. The teams held a competition to see which of them collected the most wishes.

"Micro credit is like sunshine to shine upon people who live in poverty," said Xu Xiu Ling, a project manager for micro-creditor Yinongdai. “We should let more people know its effects and participate in it."

Asked why she decided to join in this campaign, Tang Zeyan, a sophomore from Nankai University, said she believed it was a good opportunity to help others. "I took a train to Beijing and really enjoy this," she said. "It's much more meaningful than just hanging out with friends."

The campaign's organizing committee said more activities are to follow. It will select 30 students to participate the Youth Assembly in the UN headquarter this fall, and six of them will be delivering a speech on behalf of China's youth.