Parents and their children carrying out activities in Chaheze Kindergarten, under a Plan China programme. [Photo provided to China Daily]

LONDON- An international organization that has helped 168,000 children in China has celebrated its 75th birthday on Tuesday.

Plan International, one of the oldest and largest children's global development organizations, was founded in 1937 by British journalist John Langdon-Davies and refugee social worker Eric Muggeridge to help children during the Spanish Civil War.

Its China operation started in 1995 in the Yanqing county of Beijing, carrying out a range of projects to improve local agricultural production, health levels, school infrastructure, sanitation and environmental protection.

In 1999, Plan China's headquarter migrated to Xi'an, encouraged by the Chinese government's 'Open Up the West Program', a policy adopted to boost China's less developed western regions.

Since then, the organisation's work has increased to cover six programme areas across Shaanxi province and Ningxia Hui autonomous region, and will open new office in Yunnan province. Additional pilot projects support children in 17 provinces, cities and municipalities.

According to its own statistics, Plan China's work has directly helped more than 165,000 children in its six programme areas. For example, all students from a school are counted towards this number when the school's infrastructure improves.

Plan China's average annual budget totalled $6.5 million by 2011. Its team comprises of 114 people, of which only three are foreign nationals.

Yu Honglian, Education Advisor of Plan China, said that helping children to access kindergarten education is an important part of the organisation's work.

"Some children in poorer cities do not have access to kindergarten education. Therefore we have devoted resources to help schools host more children particularly the girls and also gave money to poor families to send their children to kindergarten," said.

Additionally, Plan China has a wide range of programmes, covering health, education, water and environmental sanitation, livelihood, child protection, child rights and disaster relief and rehabilitation.

He Ying, Communications Officer of Plan China, said that the organisation's projects all focus on involving children and the local community.

"We begin projects by mobilizing both adults and children in each local community what their issues are, and we help them solve or improve these issues through technical and financial support," she said.

Child sponsorship, a model of fundraising which Plan International champions, is also widely practiced by Plan China.

"Having a sponsor helps children significantly, because it makes them feel being cared for and broadens their eyes. We have a team of volunteers, mostly university students, to help translate letters between Chinese the language spoken by the children's sponsors, so that children can develop a personal bond with their sponsors," He said.

"We can also help arrange for sponsors to come to visit the child they sponsor, so they can better understand the local environment these Chinese children are living in," she said.

Going forward, Plan China hopes to do more work on improving child health, early childhood care and development, child protection, and child-centred disaster risk reduction to improve the lives of deprived and marginalized children in China.