There are three troublesome sources for all the stay-at-home children : parents leaving 

home,a family lacking reunion and children without love and accompany.

As an investigative journalists, I have never thought that,one day, I would be leaving 

media .In March 2011, I attended prize-giving evening party of Tianya Community on a cruise 

in Nanhai,where i would received my trophy as the journalists of the year.A girl next to 

me, as the public benefit person of the year,used to do support education in a mountainous 

area of Guizhou.During our chat, she told me the most unforgettable thing there was the 

expression in children' eyes ,which made me curious.

She said she had to hide inside of her own room to dinner each time when lunch time 

came.Because those stay-at-home children had not brought any food to school,and would look 

her meal with eager eyes.

“So what do they have for their lunch?” “They just drank some unboiled water, or just go 

to sleep without dinner.”

I was shocked.It is been 30 years since the beginning of  Chinese Reform and Opening 

up.There are still kids suffering from starvation? I promised her that I’ll go and see the 

school in which she had worked.In that time,i didn’t know that I would step onto another 

course of my living, which may completely changed my life.

1.It's unfair to let children be in hunger

I thought I only should help one primary school to build a refectory. But when I got 

there,I realized that almost all the children living in village didn’t have any food for 

their lunch.many children suffered from starvation at school. those who had some food were 

potatoes that were halfcooked,or some snacks buying from local store which were unhealthy.

Why did this happen?

After investigating, we found the deep reasons quickly:urbanization led to village labour 

coming into city, which result in lacking pupil,which in turn led to rural school district 

consolidation or cancel,Therefore,Children in villages had to travel much further to attend 

their schools ,and could not go back home for lunch.On the other hand,school authority 

thought it’s not their responsibility to offer lunch. In fact, they didn’t have ability 

nor fund to provide lunch.

Neither did  I have the ability .Because It’s not only a problem for the children in the 

mountainous areas of Guizhou, but almost for all 61,000,000 children in China.

But, I really wanted to help these kids. Most of them were the children who were left 

behind by their parents.I thought about my daughter.If she wasn’t lucky enough to be born 

in a family in Beijing, she might be living in this village, helpless and starving.I 

thought about myself too. I went out of a Hunan village step by step,put many effort to 

live in the cities. tacken a false step,i would end up in failure and not be able to start 

over again. if that had happened,i may become a person who were the same with those 

children’s parents.

I decided to do something  for these children.Even if we were not strong enough, but we 

have the ability to  help at least one school,or 100 kids.

I posted pictures of these kids and my idea on my Sina Weibo. I was surprised to see all 

the comments and responses. 500  investigative reporters would like to be involved.A 

company in Shenzhen donated 20,000 Yuan to help a school in Guizhou to buy  pots and pans 

in order to make lunch for kids.However, RMB20,000 is only enough for half of the month, 

what about the rest of time? I didn’t think that much at that time. I just wanted to start 

as soon as possible. I could not afford to wait anymore.

One thing i only know was that once my idea was carried out,many things would happen later.

On April 2nd, 2011,kids in Shaba Primary School of Guizhou province had chance to eat hot 

meals for their lunch.on seeing such a sight,Many people were so happy that their eyes were 

glistening with tears.donations came one after another,  We got 16,000 Yuan of contribution 

on that night,including a donation from Yili Ma, a famous chinese actress.I realized a 

truth that when we started to help the children, the whole world would help us.

Supposedly, I thought that helping the stay-at-home children to display their plight is a 

real accomplishment.but then I realized that I can’t go back to media again. The new challenge was that I couldn’t find a team to cook meals for the children. consequently, i 

should do it myself.We combined with CSWF to establish a special fund, named “FLFC”,wich 

gained its legal right of public offerings.

Without the experience and skills in doing charity , it was hard to begin .But my 

experience has accumulated over the years of work and training as a reporter, which help me 

to seize the core of the problem--- we can’t stay in school and made the lunch for kids by 

ourselves.therefore,we sign agreement with schools willing to join us:those school cooked 

for the children, while we were in charge of appropriation and supervision.We directly 

worked with  schools and avoided some mediators.

In order to make this function well and persistently, two issues needed to be solved:First, 

safety issue can’t be happened in food.Second,embezzlement should not take place in 

contribution. We posted those issues on Sina Weibo.cyber friend came up with four ideas:the 

teachers and students should eat together at the same time and the same place; purchase raw 

materials from nearby shops or farmers;to ensure openness and transparency, accounts should 

be posted on the school’s Sina Weibo each day to accept supervision of all people;schools 

combined with village committees and parents to supervise the program as well.

Because our fund was limited, we couldn’t hire people with high salaries like business 

organizations.So we could only seek help from volunteers. Our dream and zeal attracted 

thousands of volunteers to join us.But the new problem was:How do we put all these 

different people with free and equal together?

Our solution was:establish right values and culture. As a reporter, I knew what kinds of 

action would definitely lead to failure, such as centralized government,covert deals and 

corruption.So we tried many ways to avoid all these problems, for example,to be 

polycentricity,decentralization and develop freely;to be transparent and accept supervision 

 of all people. we have no vested interest and personal gains in this program ,therefore,we 

can do it transparently,which avoided the possibility of institutional corruption and 

righted the wrong in time--- cyber friend would question or criticize us if they find out 

any problem in any aspect.three factors ---believing in the rule of law,process 

standardization and stability through regulation---helped to reduce dependence on human 

being.

2. From FLFC to united charity

We were so lucky. in November 2011,the prime minister Jiabao Wen announced that Ministry of  

Finance would spend 1.6 billion Yuan each year to carry out children’s nutrition 

improvement plan for village children of school age in 22 poor areas of 680 counties.And it 

didn’t include the fee to build a cafeteria for village school.I calculated in rough 

numbers that the plan had spent almost 20 billion Yuan to improve kids’nutrition until 

now.Prime Minister Keqiang Li stated on many occasions that we should bring more resource 

to village schools. In 2014, on the Central Economic Working Conference, General Secretary 

Jinpin Xi emphasized that “children in poor areas should also get the education of equal 

and  high quality ”.

We were happy to see our government devoting more money and resources to solve the village  

kids' problem.It is the government’s duty to protect children's right of life and health 

and help them get rid of starvation. However, before the government takes any actions, 

citizens should discover the issue and take the first actions.

Many people had asked us once the government started to take actions, what should we do as 

a Civil Organization? I thought we would go back to journalism.But we saw some 

deficiency:the government only spent money on poor areas that were concentrated on some 

region in the first stage, in stead of all villages nationwide that needed help. Money was 

only served as subsidy for the school-age students.For lacking supportting funds, it could 

not offer lunch for kid of some poverty counties.  

Some kids of those counties could only get milk and cookie,but not hot rice and dishes.A 

further complication was that some kids were sent to hospital because of these exotic 

food.We couldn’t, as well as unable to withdraw.We should show government a standardized 

hot meal model with transparency and combination.

For those schools which were willing to give up milk and cookie, we’d like to provide them 

other help---FLFC afforded free lunch for cooks,teachers and kids of preschool. And we also 

help those schools to create the system of keeping accounts on some smartphone APP and Sina 

Weibo for clear accounts , assisting them get support and trust from outsider.

In 2014,for the democratic self-government and operation on rule of law of FLFC, we started 

to organize the representatives of the countrywide volunteers electing members of 

management council and oversight committee.At that time,I began to break away from FLFC, 

because there were some other things equally important that I needed to do.

On those hundreds of schools helped by FLFC,i saw village kids' plight one after another.

Because of poverty and parents absence,some sick children were lacked of timely treatment.

"ailment pulled,the disease suffered, only serious illness were sent to hospital to see a 

doctor,but leaved soon even without treatment" .In July 2012,we launched the public welfare 

funds for serious illness of the chinese rural children.we found life-saving money for the 

children through purchasing commercial insurance,which let every village children have the 

dignity to be taken care of in sickness.

Since then,we started programs like “Warm Current Plan”,“Microblogs combat child-

trafficking” and “Flying box”.Then we together with anchorwoman, female policesofficers, 

lawyers, female college students and the female teacher group launched "the child abuse 

prevention program",protecting children from sexual abuse.

China now has 800,000 orphans.In the beginning of 2016,we started a program called “The 

Gleaners”,which guided a family directly to a child with single parents who needed help.

In the past five years, we raised more than 250 millions Yuan directly for over 1 million village 

children of exceeding 20 provinces nationwide . We gradually formed a charity for the 

village children and tried to get more resource and comprehensive service for them.

Shaba Primary School of Hua Xi Yi Zu Miao Zu Town of Qianxi County of Guizhou Province, the 

students were having their lunch provided by FLFC, happy smile appeared on her face. –

picture by Junxia Zhao

3. Upgraded again: help the children and their parents to make money by themselves

Because of charity, we got almost all the awards in public welfare in recent years. But I 

had a confusion---

It looks as if we helped the stay-at-home children,but we didn’t solve the problem 

completely. Their parents are away from home, their family can’t get reunion. The absence 

of love and accompany is the root of the problem of those kids.

Only if their parents had income would they come back to village. Althought We all 

understand this theory, how can we help them to increase their income? A secretary of the 

party committee of a county said with a sad look that his county has been poor for 

thousands of years. Nearly all the possible way you can think about has been tried.But it’

s too hard to increase income for farmers in mountain area.

We seemed to find an answer in collisions. In the terms of the big picture,Some cities 

sacrificed their environment and ecology in order to develop hastily. But the risk for the 

city is the chance for the village. Because of its remoteness,bad traffic,and population 

outflow,The villages have the clean air, fresh water, healthy food and beautiful sceneries, 

which are exactly scarce resources in the cities.

In November 2014, more than 200 professors and students and me launched “E-farming program

” in China Europe International Business School.In the way of charity mixed with business, 

We tried to help those villages to sell their farm products and help parents to come back home.

There are juglans in Yangbi county of Yunnan Province, black sugar in Zhenkang county of 

Yunnan Province,Se-rich Tea in Hefeng county of Hubei Province and black rice in Hunan and 

so on. The total amount of produces we sold are more than 20,000,000 Yuan through e-

commerce platform,“E-Farming Spring Program”, to city. And our selling is increasing. 

More importantly, the purchase of those produces is doing charity in a way,and consumption 

can help kids to shape their ideas in city.

During NPC & CPPCC in 2016,Hongyu Zhou, the rep of NPC and Deputy Director of Standing 

Committee of Hubei Province, submitted a suggestion.He suggested that during the period of 

“The 13th five-year”, “Nourishment lunch” should be updated to “Free Lunch”.Based on 

different traits and tastes of different areas,we should provide nourish standard lunch. At 

the same time, he called for speeding up the construction of legislation and ralated 

systems for “FLFC”, to reinforce the effective supervision and management of “FLFC”.

At the same day, in a symposium in Beijing,a rep of NPC from Daliang Mountain of Sichuan 

Proince stood up abruptly and bowed to thank me.I was so surprised. She was a teacher in 

there.So, she said that you helped so many kids, and that I want to thank you on behalf of 

kids. I told her that it is not the fact. Truth is that those kids had helped me, that 

those kids in trouble had helped me to discover another me and the power of love and 

tenderness, and that my fellows and I got a chance to take some actions to push forward 

innovation and to become a better person.

This article is published on March 24th in “Southern Weekly” by the founder of FLFC, Deng 

Fei