BEIJING Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The China Family Planning Association raised
620 million yuan (about 86 million U.S. dollars) in 2007 to provide family
planning and reproductive health care services, an association official said on
Tuesday.
"We will set up family planning centers in urban communities, health care
centers for elderly people and 'sunshine stations' to popularize family planning
knowledge among people at child-bearing age," said Pan Guiyu, vice executive
chairwoman of the association.
The non-governmental organization (NG0) has been offering emergency aid,
volunteer service and counseling to the public since it was founded in 1980. It
is the largest NGO in China and a member of the International Planned Parenthood
Federation.
Pan said all the funding would be spent in sponsoring projects nationwide
to step up education and services on family planning and reproductive health.
About 13 million yuan, for example, was injected last year to the Happiness
Project. It helps poor mothers in underdeveloped areas in the northwestern
provinces of Shaanxi and Qinghai and autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia.
Another 80 million yuan was invested in western Gansu Province to provide
small loans and technological training for 127,700 families that have followed
the family planning policy.
In the central Jiangxi Province, 460,000 such families received life
insurance from the government. The provincial government also earmarked more
than 10 million yuan to help the association expand pension coverage for rural
families with two daughters and no sons.
By the end of 2007, the association had helped to promote family planning
across the country by expanding the birth control education to 70 percent of
rural and 85 percent of urban areas.
Its efforts were in line with the tough acts by the government to curb
violation of family planning laws. For such violations, 500 Party members in the
central Hubei Province and 104 in the southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region
were ousted last year.
