Even under the scorching midday sun, Zaqir Ruz is still practicing football skills with his teammate from the school football team. 

His coach told him that a football scout from Guangzhou R&F Football Club, a professional football club in the Chinese Super League, will come to Shufu to select talents for their football school.

This can be a life-changing opportunity for Zaqir.

Zaqir is a fifth-grade student of Mingde Primary School in Shufu County, Kashgar Prefecture in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Although 12 years old, he has made out a plan for his professional career. 

He fell in love with football when he was eight and his icon is Lionel Messi. 

"I have never missed a single match of Messi," Zaqir said.

His biggest dream is to go to a sports school and eventually join China's national football team.

His talent is recognized and supported by both his family and school's football coach, but his elder brother didn't have such luck.

Back in 2018, his brother attended football qualification trials in Kashgar during his last year of primary school. He passed the trial and earned a quota to attend the sports school. But he failed to get his mom's permission. 

In a small county like Shufu, where the margin for error is especially thin for the working-class family, his mother, Zinari Tigul Memet, insisted her son should follow the traditional path of attending normal high school and then to a university through the college entrance examinations.

To Zinari, becoming a professional football player sounds like a pipe dream. Because no professional football player has ever come out from Kashgar Prefecture, let alone Shufu.

Plus, the tuition for sports schools in Kashgar are higher than ordinary high schools, which would become a burden for a family with an income just above the poverty line.

But things began to change two years ago. A kid in Shufu was spotted by a coach of the "pairing assistance program through football" from Guangzhou and helped him get enrolled in the Guangzhou R&F football school.

Imuran Tursun was fortunate. Not only did he get enrolled into a football school, but the headquarters of the Guangdong-Xinjiang pairing assistance program and the R&F Football Club agreed to award him with a financial aid package that covered the 30,000 yuan (about 4,400 U.S. dollars) annual tuition at his dream high school as well. 

The doors first cracked open to Imuran before his senior year in primary school when a pairing assistance coach came to the county to watch him play and talk to his parents. The coach managed to set up contact between the program and the football club and guided Imuran's family through the application process to the football school.

Shufu County is the pilot county of Guangzhou "pairing assistance program through football," which started in 2017. This is part of the broader poverty alleviation program in China.

China has been implementing the "pairing assistance" program in Xinjiang since 1997, channeling financial support to Xinjiang from other regions of the country and sending officials and professionals to work there.

Guangzhou, the capital of south China's Guangdong Province, is a city with comparatively rich football resources and owns the first-class youth-development system in China. Under the pairing-assistance program between Guangzhou and Shufu, the government came up with the idea of leveraging the football resources of Guangzhou to offer another opportunity for kids in Shufu to realize their dream, and possibly to climb up the educational and economic ladder.

"Before I came to Shufu, I didn't understand why we wanted to establish a football training program here," Xuan Leyu, a Guangzhou official for the Xinjiang pairing assistance program, told CGTN. "After I first came here in December last year, it was a cold winter. I saw many kids playing football in the snow by the roadside. I was touched by their enthusiasm towards this sport, and it all made sense to me."

Imuran graduated from the same primary school as Zaqir. Following his predecessor, Zaqir has become more determined to his football dream, and his mom has come to realize that becoming a football player is a feasible dream to chase after.

"When my son first got selected for the school football team, I always worried about him coming home late for training after the school day," Zinari told CGTN. "But now I want to support my son and his football dream. The coaches of the pairing assistance program gave my son football equipment and clothes last year, which totaled 2,000 yuan. I'm grateful."

Pickung up football talents in Shufu is not the goal of this program. With support from the Guangdong Province's sports bureau and the office of Guangdong-Xinjiang pairing assistance program, the program has invested 6.9 million yuan (about 1 million U.S. dollars) in funding for the renovation of playgrounds and to set up training sessions.

By setting up the training sessions, "we hope to build a coaching team in Shufu County by supporting and cultivating local talents," said Xuan.

Zhang Chaolumen is one of the coaches who received training from professionals from Guangzhou. He is the sports teacher at Mingde Primary School.

"I didn't know about football when I came here. One of the volunteer teachers from Guangzhou coached me. Now, I can teach students some basic football moves."

The concept of "development through sports" has long been used in various capacities of development practice, especially in lower-income areas.

Over the past three years, hundreds of pupils in Shufu, a predominantly Uygur community, have benefited from this program in various ways. Each year, groups of students were funded by the program to visit Guangzhou, a predominantly Han community. The trips provide opportunities for education, expression, and exchange, all based around football, and help them understand the diversity and vibrancy of China.

Although football itself can not end poverty, the program adopts a new vision for development, contributes to economic development and people's wellbeing and helps unify people.