Publicity blitz turns remote charity group into China icon

EVERY SO OFTEN, Beijing feels the need to create a model individual or organisation in China. The most recent in Shenzhen is a remote non-government organisation that helps those in need. It has been hailed as following in the tradition of Lei Feng - the legendary hero in the 1950s who spent his brief life helping others.

The organisation - named Those with Love - was set up by a dozen individuals in 1995 in Shajing, an outskirt township of Shenzhen. Over the years it has helped many in need with donations and volunteer help. But only recently has it attracted the attention of city government and media, who have flocked to the remote township to study its good deeds.

'Every organisation and resident should study Zeng Liuying [the founder and chairman of the organisation], which has set a new model of how social spiritual civilisation should be built in today's environment,' a government report said.

The group, which has 2,500 members, has donated and raised more than five million yuan (about HK$4.68 million) for poor areas, especially those hit by natural disasters over the past seven years.

In April 1998, it gathered 123,000 yuan for earthquake relief in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province. In August that year it collected 140,000 yuan to help flood victims in eastern China. In 2000, when Inner Mongolia province suffered a snowstorm, the group co-ordinated with the Shenzhen Red Cross to collect 330,000 yuan and six containers of clothes.

Huang Weiping, director of Political Studies Department of Shenzhen University, said the recent publicity about group reflected the need to fill a gap left by the government as it withdraws from offering the relief services it once did.