Li Rong, 34, an enthusiastic woman farmer in south China's Guangxi
Autonomous Region, spent the whole morning Thursday organizing her
fellow villagers to watch a video on SARS prevention in her yard.
Li
is a member of the family planning association in Dahuanghou
Village of Chengxiang town, Wuming County in Guangxi. Thursday is
the activity day for China's Family Planning Association (FPA).
The association, the largest non-governmental organization in
China, boasts about 83 million members over a wide area, especially
in the rural areas. In Guangxi alone, the association has some 5
million members, nearly one third of the total population in the
autonomous region.
When China was menaced by the epidemic severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS) disease, the FPA aroused all its members to fight
against the epidemic.
Dahuanghou village has more than 1,500 local residents, with 160 of
them being FPA members, said Qin Guizong, director of the village's
FPA. Each member is held accountable for several households. These
members not only provide routine reproductive advices, but also
help spread SARS information and record data on returned
migrants.
The Guangxi Family Planning Association has resorted to every
possible means to spread relevant knowledge on SARS prevention,
including newspapers, broadcasts, and slogans.
"In my village, the broadcasts, wall newspapers and slogans about
SARS have been going on for several months," said Wei Qingmei, from
Xialu Village of Shuangqiao town, Wuming County.
In
Jinxiu County of Guangxi, the FPA members even wrote folk songs to
spread SARS prevention knowledge among its people.
With he help of family planning staff, China succeeded in making
its first comprehensive survey of rural migration earlier this
month, which was contributing to curb the spread of SARS from urban
to rural areas.
(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2003)
