Guitar-playing Wenchuan orphan one of many helped by home

Ankang Nursery Home is a project started by the China Children and Teenagers' Fund and Rizhao Steel Group to help those orphaned in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.

Initially, the home was in Rizhao - a city in Shandong province 1,500 kilometers from Wenchuan - and occupied several dormitories previously used by steel workers. After about a year, the home was relocated to a purpose-built complex in Chengdu, the Sichuan capital.

Du Chao, 16, who now attends boarding school, returns to Ankang every weekend as Hu Yuanzhong, head of the home, is teaching him guitar. "Playing the guitar makes me easily get along with classmates and even popular among girls," he said with a shy smile.

On May 12, 2008, the 8-magnitude quake struck Wenchuan, Sichuan, bringing more than 80,000 people dead and missing.