Amway's 'Healthy Children Paradise' program comes to Yunnan

The Amway Charity Foundation announced that it has donated 1 million yuan (US$138,000) to further efforts to bridge the gap in early child development between rural and urban China by establishing kindergarten classes in Lanping County of Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province.

It's the first time that the "Healthy Children Paradise" project, which is a comprehensive health support program for children aged 0 to 6 in rural areas, has been launched in the southwestern province. "Healthy Children Paradise" will be established inside 100 kindergartens in Lanping to offer nutritional educational courses and create a favorable child-rearing environment.

Under the support of Shanghai's pairing-up mechanism and poverty alleviation working group for Yunnan, the Shanghai Foreign Investment Association, and the Peking University Institute of Children and Adolescents Health, the program provides not only educational materials but also training and parenting courses as well as nutritional tips.

Rural families are also provided with materials and educational kits, in addition to training courses for kindergarten teachers so that child rearers can have stronger health awareness and child-rearing capacity, ensuring that the early-stage development of children in rural areas is not left behind.

By building dedicated health education corners for rural kindergartens, and providing rural families with material kits to establish children-friendly spaces, the project seeks to comprehensively improve children's nurturing environment, providing nutritional health and parenting courses suitable for rural families, and improving the health awareness and parenting skills of rural kindergarten teachers and educators.

Eventually, the program aims to enhance the physical, mental and intelligence levels of rural children so that they can fully enjoy a healthy early-stage life.

Vincent Hwang, vice chairman of the Amway Charity Foundation, said at the project launch ceremony that it's dedicated to working together with parents, kindergartens, volunteers, communities and social welfare organizations to form a comprehensive network and a long-term mechanism to support children's healthy growth, and contribute to early-stage childhood development in rural areas.

Launched in 2021, the Healthy Children Paradise program now covers 885 kindergartens in 17 provinces and regions and 44 counties, including Yunnan, Gansu, Hunan, and Sichuan provinces as well as the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, benefiting more than 16,000 families and 120,000 children.

Chairman of the Shanghai Foreign Investment Association Huang Feng noted that the volunteer working committee of the SHFIA has been serving as a bridge to link with multinational companies and a wide range of voluntary public welfare initiatives.

He explained that the working committee will join hands with member companies, charity funds and stakeholders to put together efforts and push forward rural revitalization.

The Healthy Children Paradise program was made possible in Yunnan under a framework which was set up in 2022 by the working committee that links Shanghai with Yunnan's Nujiang Prefecture.

A series of public welfare programs has been put forward by the Amway Charity Foundation since its establishment 12 years ago such as nutritional supplementary programs and preschool children's nutrition improvement campaign, covering 319 counties in 31 provinces and regions and as many as 3.34 million rural children have benefited.