Lunches and Medical Insurance for Impoverished Kids

Transparent Charity

The two-year free-lunch plan has raised over RMB 37 million, benefiting 30 to 40 million students in 163 schools in poverty-stricken areas of western China. Non-governmental public charities are nothing new in China, but none have been so widely known or long lasting. From Deng’s perspective, the success of Free Lunches for Children is due to a set of standardized operation models.

As an experienced journalist, Deng is wary of all factors that could impair the project. “I was aware from the start that we should keep a safe distance from cash.” After carrying out research, he finally opened a special account at the China Social Welfare Education Foundation that charged a five percent management fee. In Deng’s view, “The project deserves a platform crowned with the highest performance-price ratio.”

Before supplying any funding, Deng, along with fellow media workers and volunteers, investigated schools and shared his findings with the public on his microblog. The official Free Lunches for Children website published information on the schools in question and also on all donations received. To ensure the funds were appropriately used, every school was required to publish on the micro-blog their daily expenditure as well as pictures of lunches being served. Those without Internet access were required to send messages to volunteers, who accordingly passed the information on to netizens.

The official “Free Lunches for Children” website makes clear its aims and functions: “Schools should publish details of daily expenditure on the micro-blog and a special inspection team should make spot-checks through unannounced visits to ensure the appropriate use of all funds. What’s more, local governments, the media, NGOs, parents, netizens and tourists should join together in carrying out supervision.”

“All possible efforts were made to guarantee transparency of funding to the public and to maintain the trust of donors and volunteers. Funds have since poured in,” Deng said.

Recently, the Ministry of Civil Affairs brought into effect a policy whereby big foundations publish quarterly financial reports. Deng is in full support of this policy. “We publish a financial report on ‘Free Lunches for Children’ every week.”

Since the launch of the project, it has been commended for its efficiency, transparent management, wide participation and cooperation between the public and local government.

“The initial enthusiasm for ‘Free Lunches for Children’ has now worn off. Nowadays, the imperatives have changed from expanding the project to more schools to sustaining schools where it is in practice, and making the grassroots project a model that coordinates with official plans to improve the nutrition of rural students receiving compulsory education,” Deng told us.

Credibility, Openness, and Transparency

Deng is now firmly and irreversibly involved in grassroots charities. Although his new position is an onerous task compared to journalism, he has never felt so fulfilled.

“It brings me a warm glow of accomplishment. Having previously had limited influence on readers and society as a journalist, I find microblogs are an effective tool for mobilizing people and accumulating resources to solve problems. China has no lack of writers, but what it needs is people who take action,” Deng said, adding, “Supervision can provoke public ire, but doing it with love and benevolence paves the way for social improvement, which is my goal.”

Now that the “Free Lunches for Children” project is operating smoothly, Deng has embarked on a third welfare project for children, that of medical insurance for rural children suffering from serious diseases.

The process of urbanization entails rural residents’ becoming migrant workers in cities while their children stay at home. Such “left-behind” children need medical insurance as well as meals. Deng points out that the medical insurance program is even more important than the Free Lunches project, because the former is a “remedy for insufficiency” while the latter can save children’s lives.

Medical insurance for rural children is generally organized through the New Cooperation Medical Service (NCMS). But it requires that the parents of a child patient have enough ready cash to pay for a hospital visit before getting a refund. So poverty-stricken families have no way of funding treatment of serious diseases.

Jointly promoted by Deng Fei, certain philanthropists and various commercial insurance companies, the medical insurance program is a fitting complement to the NCMS and covers children aged 0 to 14 years old. There is no limit to insurable diseases under this new supplementary project, the maximum cover for which is RMB 200,000, and whereby 90 percent of expenses are reimbursed and paid entirely by social funds. The first pilot has been set up in Hefeng County, a nationally recognized “poverty-stricken” county, in Hubei Province.

In microblog circles, Deng Fei is known as “Old Brother, the Leader.” His experience with charitable resource integration has shown that the credibility of charitable organizations depends not upon publicity or money, but on honesty originating in information disclosure. For Deng, credibility, openness and transparency are the new standards of modern charities. At the medical insurance for serious diseases launch ceremony, Deng made a point in his speech of specifying how to make an account transparent, emphasizing that he welcomes audits from any reputable senior accountant. “We may be not professional, but every penny is accounted for,” Deng said.

The charitable foundation is responsible, with the help of caring people and enterprises, for raising money for medical insurance for rural children with serious diseases. Experts and bid assessment volunteers, comprising certified actuaries and senior insurance personnel, assess and agree upon the successful bidder. Commercial insurance companies then settle all claims and local governments render support.

“This operational model is a system we have designed that combines charitable foundations with commercial insurance companies – both professional forces in their own fields,” spokesperson of the pro-ject Zhang Qingfeng said.

In the microblog era, Deng acknowledges the power of the Internet to make a difference. The Internet is the model of transparency he seeks to apply in business and charity. And it looks like he’s succeeding.