Fresh from the province, Hu Yanping was overjoyed when she beat thousands of others for a mere factory job in southern China. Today, several years later, the 20-year-old is on cloud nine as she is chosen from a mountain of applications for a ground-breaking US scholarship program.
Launched this week, the program run by the Asia Foundation, a San Francisco based non-governmental group, helps provide education and skills training to women migrant laborers in the industrialized belt of southern China.
About 60 percent of the 10 million migrant factory workers in the belt are women, many under the age of 25, poorly educated, and working for roughly US$50 a month.
Handicapped by illiteracy and poverty, they are vulnerable to human rights abuses, such as domestic and workplace violence, non-payment of wages, and discrimination.
"I feel more proud of myself," said Hu, from Shanxi province in northern China, in her scholarship application to the Asia Foundation translated from Chinese. "I will have the freedom to choose a better-paying job in the future, which in turn enhances my capability to help others who are in need," said the worker from an electronics company in Guangzhou.
Among 36 picked from a pool of 300 shortlisted applicants, she will study management in the Guangzhou University.
Scholarship winners can choose from a range of subjects, such as accounting, English as a second language, tailoring, small business management, computer science, law, nursing, and art design. The courses are offered in schools and universities throughout China.
To ensure that coursework reflects future employment needs and opportunities, the Asia Foundation assembled a scholarship panel to review curricula at various universities and vocational schools, officials said.
"Nowhere in China is there a more dire need for women to have access to education and vocational training than in [southern] Guangdong [province]," said Zhang Ye, China country director for The Asia Foundation.
"Unfortunately, migrant women workers in this southern China region are often overlooked and ineligible for the same benefits given to residents," she said, according to a foundation statement. "This program will prepare them for jobs in a number of fields, from tourism to small business management."
The Asia Foundation supports programs in Asia that help improve governance and law, economic reform and development, women's empowerment, and international relations, officials said. It has a network of 17 offices throughout the region.
Last year, the foundation provided more than US$72 million in program support and distributed almost 800,000 books and educational materials valued at US$28 million throughout Asia.
Its focus on migrant women workers in China began five years ago. It has provided services for more than 200,000 workers in more than 200 factories in 22 cities and districts along China's Pearl River Delta.
"The Asia Foundations work to provide migrant workers with access to education and counseling, legal services, and health and safety training, was the first of its kind," said Douglas Bereuter, the foundation's president.
It first designed and initiated these programs with funding from American jeans giant Levi Strauss.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person