Junior care is child's play for seniors

Retired women are giving hard-pressed parents a helping hand. Deng Rui and Tan Yingzi report.

"If the kids can't feel a granny's love, we like to act as replacements," said Huang Zejun, a "shared granny" in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing. "Actually, we warm each other's hearts through our mutual company."

A group of senior women in Chongqing who serve as shared grannies－helping working parents by picking up their children from school and accompanying them as they do homework and play－has won a lot of praise online recently.

The team, from Shipingcun community in the city's Jiulongpo district, consists of nine female retirees, mostly "empty nesters", ranging in age from 66 to 74. These volunteers shoulder the responsibility of taking care of 25 pupils from the community's Yangshilu Primary School.

Before the summer break, the school could only offer after-class services for the students until 5:30 pm every Tuesday to Friday.

On Mondays, however, the students got off school at 3:30 pm, earlier than usual, but their parents or relatives were unable to spare the time to collect them. By chance, the Chongqing Amber Social Work Service Center, a public service organization, was established in the district in November.

In April, the center introduced the municipality's first shared grannies program, with the aim of integrating the joint efforts of families, the school and the community to support the children.

To provide care and public services for both young and old in the community, the program recruits healthy retired women and also invites younger volunteers to tutor the children with their homework and oversee them as they play.

It provides a series of public welfare activities－such as free talent training, like making zongzi (balls of glutinous rice with various fillings) to celebrate Dragon Boat Festival, planting vegetables or growing flowers.

Moreover, during traditional holidays, the center arranges for the families to pay visits to the grannies as a way of thanking them for their efforts, according to Mao Yu, a 26-year-old volunteer.

The program gained a lot of positive feedback in just a few months.

On Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform, one netizen commented, "The model is great and worth promoting in other places in the country."

On July 27, during the summer vacation, the center provided a free lecture about Peking Opera for the children and grannies in a community function room. The attendees sang and performed Peking Opera, and painted the distinctive face masks together.