The fourth "Chinese Charity Day" falls on September 5. This year’s theme is "Charity focused on poverty alleviation and working together to create a better life."

Many places in China held related charity activities recently, showing enhancement of charity awareness and enthusiasm for doing charity work among the public, according to a Xinhua report.

Care for people in plight

On a Thursday event in Shanghai, China’s charity model Yang Deguang and others built connections with 17 impoverished families, trying to help parents perform their guardianship duties related to their children, who have shown excellent academical and moral standards. 

On the same day, the "special fund for caring children in plight" and the "charity trust project for caring children in plight" were set up in Shanghai. These funds will provide academic assistance and awards to children in need.

In Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, volunteers visited households in plight in Huangniqiao community and a welfare home in Lengshuitan District, and donated them rice, mooncakes, quilts, and other supplies.

“Although I encountered merciless illness, I see love through it," said Ding Yuqin, a nursing worker from Shichahai street of Beijing at a themed donation activity.

She was found to have breast cancer in 2011, which put her life in a desperate situation. Shichahai street office and residents donated her 70,000 yuan (9,832 U.S. dollars), which not only gave Ding timely treatment but also the courage and confidence she needed to fight the disease.

Now, Ding has returned to work and was successfully elected deputy director of Xixiang community this year. "I will do my best to help those around me who are in need, and pass on this love," she said.

Charity helps to alleviate poverty

“With the help of the Chongqing Charity Federation, our village has been lifted out of poverty,” said villager representative Zhang Da’an in Chaoyang Village, Longdong Town, Yunyang County, Chongqing Municipality.

In the past three years, Chongqing Charity Federation has financed a total of 5.3 million yuan to help the village develop 133 hectares of walnut and onion farms, solve the drinking water problem that affected more than 570 people, and the inaccessibility problem that makes the lives of more than 200 people harder. 

In 2018 and the first half year of 2019, Chongqing Charity Federation spent 710 million yuan on poverty alleviation in the category of industry, health, and education, accounting for 90 percent of the total expenditure in the same period, said the federation's president Liu Guanglei.

Philanthropy is supplementary to the government's poverty alleviation work, and poverty alleviation has become the most important task of philanthropy.

On the "Chinese Charity Day", the staff of Pingchuan District Charity Association distributed a proposal to local people, encouraging them to donate money for those in poverty in Pingchuan District, Baiyin City, Gansu Province.

And Guangdong Charity Federation has for 10 years in a row launched a project to treat patients with congenital heart disease in poor families.

Universal participation in philanthropy

On Thursday morning, several seniors were chatting while sitting on the newly-stalled benches in Sanbanan community, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. Several days ago, a total of 21 benches were donated and installed here through a project participated by Shenyang Charity Federation and philanthropic enterprises.

In the internet era, online and offline interaction can be further explored in the name of the philanthropic cause.

In the past few years, the number of donations for “99 Charity Day,” launched by Tencent and hundreds of public welfare organizations, enterprises, and institutions has increased from 2.05 million to 28 million.

Shi Zengzhi, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University, said that helping others through a platform like the Internet promotes changes in individual well-being, as one feels that has more social value, a sense of identity and found some kind of spiritual sublimation.

(With input from Xinhua News Agency)