YHP China

The Young Health Programme in China aims to improve the ability of young people to protect themselves from environmental harm caused by water and air pollution and safety threat. The programme started in 2013 with a focus on youth from migrant families living in big cities. The programme evolved in 2016 to include a second focus on youth in rural areas.

YHP China is focused on helping youth who are impacted by the rapid and changing shape of the country’s rural and urban landscape. In the midst of these changes, youth are left out or left behind.

There are more than 24 million adolescents, aged 12 –16, living in migrant families in big cities in China. The majority of these families come from rural areas. Youth from rural areas have not been well taught how to protect themselves from potential health issues due to water and air pollution. Most of their parents and teachers are also uneducated about self protection from environmental pollutants.

There are also more than 9 million[i] youth who are left behind with elders and grandparents when their parents migrate to the big city to look for work. These rural areas are often poverty-stricken and lack the healthcare education and supports found in city schools. The majority of rural schools do not have dedicated school doctors and must rely on general teachers to take such responsibilities. Youth in these rural areas often struggle with both physical and mental health issues.

The Young Health Programme in China is divided into the traditional programme, which is focused on migrant children in big cities and the expanded – or Rainbow Bridge - programme which is focused on the health of children in rural areas.

The traditional programme aims to enhance the health knowledge and behaviour of migrant children by delivering training on air and water pollution and child safety directly to them at school. The programme is delivered through a partnership with Horizon Corporate Volunteer Consultancy and with the active involvement of AstraZeneca employees.

The expanded programme is called The Rainbow Bridge Project – AstraZeneca Rural Area School Health Education Promotion. This is a serial project that was initially developed by our second YHP partner, Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC). Through Rainbow Bridge, we provide training to school doctors in rural areas that puts an emphasis on adolescent health issues and risk behaviours.

Training materials and course content has been developed that is focused on Air and Health, Water & Health and Child Safety. Support materials, including videos, have been created to provide flexible training for the speakers and to help improve the efficiency of the programme for our partners. To meet the increasing needs of students, YHP China is adding more interactive games and experiments and expanding the content to increase knowledge on related conditions, such as respiratory disease in children, and prevention techniques.

With the development of the Rainbow Bridge project, new training sessions have been developed that focus specifically on the common health problems of children, respiratory conditions and the connection to air pollution, nutrition, safety and first aid and mental health. Most of the schools in rural areas are very small and scattered across a large area which makes training the children more difficult. Instead, YHP China provides two-day training sessions for school doctors. After this training, the school doctors can provide better healthcare education and supports back to school, and thus benefit as many children as possible.

Each year, more than 40 traditional YHP activities take place in up to 20 different cities across China. With the expansion of the Rainbow Bridge project, YHP China anticipates it will reach another 400 schools by 2018.

Since the programme launched in 2013, it has reached more than 5,600 children in more than 25 cities across China. The employee involvement in YHP China is also remarkable with more than 1,280 volunteers spending more than 4,600 hours to help deliver the programme.

In 2016, YHP China was recognized with a Silver Award in the Third Chinese Youth Volunteer Service Project Competition, one of the most authoritative volunteer awards in China.

5,600

children reached

25

cities

1,280

volunteers

The Horizon Corporate Volunteer Consultancy (HCVC) is committed to becoming China’s leading professional consultancy in corporate volunteering and is offering the largest supporting platform.

HCVC is China’s leading social organization supporting and consulting in volunteer service. Up to now, HCVC has successfully provided volunteering integrated solutions and operating management for the relevant governmental departments in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and so on and has partnered with more than 500 enterprises to launch or optimize volunteering programs. A total of over 10,000 charitable organisations and over 100,000 children, elderly and disabled people have been directly served and over a million communities and groups have benefited indirectly.

Through over a thousand volunteering projects supported by HCVC each year, approximately 200,000 volunteers from enterprises, public institutions and a variety of charities and voluntary groups are mobilized to directly help almost 1,000,000 individuals and indirectly ten million beneficiaries. They contribute about 2,000,000 volunteering hours, and create more than 50, 000,000 RMB of social values.

In 2011, HCVC was named by the British Council as one of the ten best social enterprises and was invited to visit the UK. HCVC gained the Merit Award of ‘Make A Difference’ on behalf of the Chinese mainland in Hong Kong in 2012.

Find out more about The Horizon Corporate Volunteer Consultancy

The Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) is one of the earliest national people's organizations engaged in people-to-people diplomacy of the People's Republic of China.

The aims of the Association are to enhance people’s friendship, further international cooperation, safeguard world peace and promote common development. On behalf of the Chinese people, it makes friends and deepens friendship in the international community and various countries around the world, lays and expands the social basis of friendly relations between China and other countries, and works for the cause of human progress and solidarity. It has set up 46 China-regional or China-national friendship organizations and established relationship of friendly cooperation with nearly 500 nongovernment organizations and institutions in 157 countries.

The CPAFFC was founded on May 3, 1954.

Find out more about The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries

[1] 2016 National Survey