Forty-year-old Jing Guiqin, a woman from north China's Hebei Province, is extremely happy these days.

Having shared a 20-square-meter adobe house with four other family members for years, she is finally the owner of five tile-roofed houses.

She also acquired, and paid off, a loan of 3,000 yuan (about US$370) to start her own business.

More important, she has been able to send her two daughters to school.

Jing is one of the beneficiaries of the Happiness Project.

This public welfare program, initiated by the China Population Welfare Foundation and Family Planning Association of China, has helped about 140,000 needy mothers since it was established 10 years ago. This is according to information released at a tenth anniversary review meeting held on Tuesday in Fuping County of Hebei Province. 

Launched in 1995, the program provides small loans to and personalized training for poor, rural mothers, particularly those who adhere to the country's family planning policies. 

"Providing personalized training for needy rural mothers has been successful. The training has helped them to come out of poverty on their own," Zhao Baige, vice chairman of the State Family Planning Commission, said.

"The project is of great significance to the sustainable development of China's poverty alleviation work," Zhao added.

The program has so far injected 260 million yuan (US$32 million) to its 341 offices around the country.

In some of these areas, the average annual income of rural mothers has risen from 840.5 yuan to 1931.1 yuan, and 89.5% of them have come out of poverty, according to a recent sample survey conducted by Beijing's Tsinghua University.

Zhao said the project has received up to 35.33 million yuan (about US$4.35 million) in donations from home and abroad in the last five years.

Some international non-governmental organizations such as the Ford Foundation as well as local governments constitute the major source of donations.

China still has 26 million people living in abject poverty in its rural areas, acknowledged Zhang Lei, a senior official with the China Association for Poverty Alleviation and Development, among whom about five million are married women with children.

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2005)