Weathering cold comfort

There's new hope that students from Gyelto Town Boarding Primary School in Zadoi county, Qinghai province, won't shiver throughout the winter. The love-based campaign Warm Plan intends to send heating supplies from all over China, so these children don't have to spend another chilly season enduring numb fingers and reddened faces.

Zadoi covers an area of 35,000 sq km, and the average annual temperature is only 0.2 C. For more than 10 months of the year, the temperature of this region is below 0 C, and in winter, it plummets to nearly -20 C. It's difficult to imagine the lives local students lead without sufficient heating supplies. Schools won't build a fire until the temperature drops to below 0 C, and the students run or huddle together to warm up.

Since Jan 15, 2007, the Life 567 program on CCTV 7, the Agriculture Channel, has broadcast a documentary about how Qinghai students live without adequate heating. Millions of viewers were deeply moved by the way the children smiled optimistically despite the harshness of their living and studying conditions, and donations of money and materials poured in from around the country.