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Cards deal a welcome hand to parents of missing children

Q: What's the idea behind the cards?

A: I thought the cards would be a way to help parents find their lost children, and I have distributed the cards free to police officers and the public in major cities.

I knew the first 10,000 sets were not enough, but it is the beginning of something new.

I want to raise public awareness towards the plight of lost children through media coverage of my approach.

It is the first time on the mainland that somebody has printed 'wanted' playing cards with information about lost children.

How did you get the idea?

I got the idea last year when I was trying to help a man who had been abducted from his family in Hubei when he was four or five years old. A local newspaper covered the story on the same day that it carried a story about Henan police issuing playing cards with information on wanted criminals. I knew that in 2003, the US army published cards of the most-wanted Iraqi war criminals. The two things inspired me.

How did you produce the cards?

I began this project with a friend last November and we spent four months on discussion and planning. In March, I began to travel across the country to collect personal particulars of the 27 lost children, who come from 10 provinces. I returned to Chuzhou , in eastern Anhui, in early May. We made up a dummy set and sent it to a Zhejiang factory for printing. The cards were finally delivered to Chuzhou on August 1 and were then distributed for free.

Why are there only 27 - not 52 - lost children on the cards?

This time, only 27 families were prepared to pay to have information about their missing children on the cards. Each family has to pay 600 yuan to have their children's details included.

Did you make a profit?

That's what many people are suspicious of and ask me. I did not make a profit but actually lost money. Altogether we collected 15,600 yuan from 26 families.

The printing took up nearly all of the money, and we had spent more than 10,000 yuan on travel.

We charged the families this time to get the project up and running because we couldn't afford to do it for free. I hope some businesses and organisations can help fund our future projects so we can do it without charging anybody.

What difficulties did you face?

I think the only difficulty was that many families with missing children didn't trust us. They thought we were trying to make a profit from the cards.

But I think the situation will be much better in the future after all of the publicity we gained over the first set.

Do you have other similar projects?

Yes, I have a website to help find missing relatives. It was set up in 2000 and together with my partners, I have helped more than 300 families find missing relatives.

Is there anything else special about the cards?

Yes, there is one Hong Kong boy called Yu Man-hon, who went missing in 2000 when he was 15. The boy's family contacted me this May. The family was charged 600 yuan but I gave them priority, putting their child on the ace of spades and the ace of hearts.

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