The project was launched in 1996 as a trial issue and promoted nationwide in 1998. It is jointly organized by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Personnel and the West Development Office under the State Council. Young volunteers are recruited from the public and they relay the process regularly to keep the project going. In order to help tap human resources in the middle and western regions, volunteers of each group go to poor areas to work for a period from six months to two years. Their services focus on basic education, health care, promotion of agricultural technology and other fields. So far, 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have participated in this project. Various forms of cooperation between better-developed and underdeveloped provinces and areas have been created, with education and health care as the major subjects to work on.

It is reported that a training base for the application of computer science will be built in the west region. Volunteers involved in the poverty-relief relay project will train teachers at the primary and middle schools supported by the project and schools nearby which meet the requirements for training so as to promote the popularization of the knowledge on computer and Internet among people in poor areas. The project is scheduled to provide training for a million people in three years. It has started accepting donation of computers accessible to the Internet from people in all circles.

(china.org.cn by Wang Qian, July 25, 2002)