SOS villages provide orphans a good start

Program celebrates its 30th anniversary in China

Gao Yuan, who was admitted to the law school at Zhengzhou University three years ago, is still grateful for the "mother" who took care of him as her own child for more than 10 years, and he comes back to see her in neighboring Kaifeng city whenever he has a vacation.

Gao met Bai Hongxia, a single woman of the SOS Children's Village in Kaifeng, Henan province, in 1997 when he was 3 years old. Gao, whose father was killed in a car accident and whose mother had died when he was only 1 year old, was sent to the village by his stepmother, who could not support him after having her own baby.