Help for homeless street kids
Help for homeless street kids:
2006-01-23 Beijing Time
XIAO Mei, 7, is fascinated with a new, remote-control toy car in a game room at a ‘waif aid center’ in the southwestern city of Chengdu.
Still, she is worried about her mother, a mental patient, who got lost two months ago. Then Xiao Mei, a waif, roamed the streets, not knowing how she would eat.
Fortunately, she was picked up by the aid center a few days after her mother disappeared.
China has more than 130 such aid centers for homeless children.
Such emergency centers have helped nearly 240,000 homeless children from August 2003 to late 2005.
As one of China’s most successful aid centers, the one in Chengdu provides with table tennis, TV, Internet access, neat and tidy bedrooms, showers, and other hygiene facilities.
To promote the children’s shelters, national officials met in Chengdu last week to explore more financial and policy support.
They said local officials should open their own waif aid centers by the end of 2006."
