The 48-year-old woman says her life now has meaning since she became involved in social groups with women from her township who have set up five or six groups and meet on a regular basis.

Yuan's meetings often take place at her house in the evening, after they have finished their day's toil in the fields. On chilly winter days, they sit around a fire, drinking oil tea made with peanuts, eating and chatting.

The topics they discuss centre on how best to use the money they have acquired through the micro credit offered by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

For many of these minority rural women, access to such a credit, 1,000 yuan (US$120) a year for the first loan and a maximum 2,500 yuan (US$301) for subsequent loans, was unheard of in a society that is dominated by males.

When her husband got a bank loan, says Yuan, who lives in a mountainous area with no electricity, the money could not be used by women. "The bank does not trust us women, and assumes that we are not capable of paying the loan back," she says. The bank loan is "for something they call 'big business,'" Yuan said.

Yuan and her group are now in the pre-loan training session for the programme by Local Planning and Action for Children (LPAC) launched by UNICEF-China early last year.

The programme, gives small loans to mothers in need and is designed to make access to credit easy for impoverished women in selected communities. Through these women, their children can learn and train for new skills.

The project, deemed by UNICEF as a strategic intervention for addressing the needs of China's most vulnerable groups of women and children, offers rural women an annual credit.

The women have recently received their credit , and Yuan already has a picture in her mind of what she will do with the money. "I'll use the money to plant radishes and other vegetables, and then I'll buy breeding pigs," she says.

The credit, tiny as it may seem to city dwellers, means a lot to the women in Baoliang Village, Dongjing Township of Guanyang County, an area at 3,500 metres above sea level. The average per capita income there is around 900 yuan (US$108) annually, much less than the average monthly income for Beijingers.

"(With the credit,) I can do things of my own accord. The more money I get, the more I can do with it," says Deng Weilian, 33, from the village.

Liu Mamei, 50, has even made up her mind not to let her husband meddle in her business, for "he has no plans and can't do things right."

However, the small loans do have conditions.

As Lin Fei, national programme officer, indicates, every loan should be paid back within a year at a monthly interest rate of 0.8 per cent, which pay for risk funds and salary for the staff managing the fund.

The interest is also used to support social development, training and other activities. To guarantee the repayment of the loan, every woman in the small group must put at least 100 yuan (US$12) in the group's fixed savings account as a deposit. Members will have to share the risk in case any one of them fails to pay back the credit.

There may be risks, but the strong-willed women are not afraid to take advantage of the opportunity.

"I'll try my utmost to pay back the money," says a skinny Dai Tingyue whose two children, a boy and a girl, are now studying at a township secondary school and need 3,000 yuan (US$361) a year just to cover their school expenses.

When the group of around 200 women in total throughout the township meet, Dai treks for over an hour over the mountain so that she can attend.

She listens attentively and take note of what the lecturers talk about at the meetings. The subjects range from the rights of children and women, disease prevention, hygiene and sanitation, mothering skills, early childcare to farming and production skills.

"I have a poor memory. But when I get home I go over what is said," says the 39-year-old who has to shoulder the burdens of the family due to her husband's poor health. She adds that the classes and training are a great help in growing vegetables and "getting my family rich."

At present, there are still millions of children in China whose basic needs are not met.

Gnilane Senghor, senior programme and planning officer for UNICEF-China, points out that rather high infant mortality rates, high prevalence of malnutrition and stunting, and low education opportunities for children still exist in some poor and minority areas in the interior and mountainous regions.

Poverty among women is also a serious concern, says Senghor from Senegal.

"Many women from poor and minority areas are unable to adapt to the rapidly changing economic and social situations due to their low levels of literacy, limited access to information and technology, and the burden of shouldering the bulk of labour in agricultural production, family care and community work," she said.

Although it is new to women like Yuan Guixiu in Guangxi, the loans from UNICEF were introduced to China as early as 1996 when it was known by a different name.

From 1995 to 2000, UNICEF has invested US$9 million in support of programme activities in technical support, training and capacity building, micro-credit funds, and supplies and equipment.

The Chinese Government has also provided personnel and counterpart funds totalling about US$7 million. Some 51,430 poor women from 25 counties in Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi and Xinjiang provinces and autonomous regions have all benefited.

Zhang Yinfang, 35, from Tianzhu County in Northwest China's Gansu Province, has increased her annual income from 600 yuan (US$72) in 1996 to around 1,000 yuan (US$120), thanks to the credit for poor women. She even puts away 480 yuan (US$58) in her small group as a loan for others.

"We used to grow only grain and crops and we used to depend on nature for harvest. Now we plant vegetables using scientific methods," she says, listing the many changes that have taken place in her life since her participation in the micro-credit project, such as letting her daughter go to school.

"In our area, it is inconvenient to see the doctor. We've learned some basic health care at the training classes," says Zhang, who also won first prize in a photo competition on the theme of "rural women combating hunger and poverty," which was sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme last October.

Cao Wenyao, chief of foreign-aided projects in Tianzhu County, has witnessed the profound changes in the women involved in the micro-credit funds. He notes that outside economic poverty, poverty in knowledge and value is the core problem.

"The credit is just a means offering women opportunities and resources to demonstrate their abilities and to get rid of poverty.

"It's an attraction. But the attraction that keeps them going is the training, with the content ever-changing," says Cao, who speaks highly of the training which emphasizes women's self-development and fulfillment as human beings.

According to Cao, a total of 2,053 women are the direct beneficiaries of the funds in Tianzhu County. But with their immediate families, the impact snowballs to over 8,000 people. What's more important, he adds, is that the women's self-confidence greatly improves their status in their family and in society.

Echoing Cao's words, Zhang Xiaoling, deputy chief of Guanyang County in Guangxi, says, "We are very cautious when selecting the community for this programme. Frankly speaking, the project's social significance far outshines its economic benefits."

All the Guangxi women applying for the small loans have already saved the required 100 yuan (US$12) in their bank account. They can't wait to put their plans into practice.

Inspired by their enthusiasm, Guanyang county government is making plans for a second township to join the project.

(China Daily January 16, 2002)