Youngsters construct mounds of sand around the tree to protect its roots.	Water is brought from a cellar 10 kilometers away.	Camels guide the team through the sea of sand.

Every Sunday, when the first ray breaks over Dawan Village in Wuwei City, Gansu Province, 14-year-old Cai Hui leaps out of bed and hops on her bike. She pedals furiously to her friends' homes in neighboring villages, and wakes them up one by one. Then all six of the sleepy-headed kids make the 15-kilometer journey to the Tengger Desert, buckets and spades in hand. After a 40-minute tractor ride along the bumpy road, they reach the 800-square-kilometer desert, and begin their work - afforestation.

Of all the organizations fighting desertification in the region, this group is the youngest, and the only one that volunteers. Its members, two girls and four boys, are aged between five and 14 years. As the eldest member, Cai Hui leads the group. The team was founded in April 2004 by a primary school student who had long helped his grandfather battle the encroaching desert by planting trees along its edges. When the boy and his family moved to another city, Cai Hui took up his mantle.

Despite their tender age, these children share a common aspiration: to stop the sand sweeping into their homeland. They have planted more than 10,000 trees in the desert, and 19 percent of those have survived. That might not seem like much, but given the harsh conditions in the region, it is a pretty good achievement.

The kids toil in the desert every weekend, come rain, hail or shine. And every tree they plant gives them the sense that they are one step closer to their goal.