Gansu turns pairing assistance into a social movement

Gansu province is transforming a pairing assistance program, led by the Communist Party of China, into a long-term social governance model centered on people's well-being.

Launched in May 2023, the Pairing Assistance Caring Gansu initiative was created to connect Party members and officials with vulnerable groups. Over the past three years, it has evolved from a government-led assistance program into a broader social movement involving charities, enterprises, social organizations and volunteers.

So far, more than 25,000 officials have established long-term assistance relationships with 267,000 vulnerable residents across the province, including orphans, children in difficult circumstances, severely disabled people and families living in hardship. The program has recorded over 4.25 million interactions and 2.8 million home visits, helping address urgent needs in education, healthcare, employment and psychological support.

"What many vulnerable families fear most today is no longer hunger or poverty, but loneliness and the feeling of being left behind," said Wang Xiang, Party secretary of Huangping township in Longnan city. "Policy assistance provides basic guarantees, but pairing assistance heals the heart."

The province has gradually built a multidimensional support network, integrating education, healthcare and employment assistance. In Baiyin's Pingchuan district, local authorities paired 39 enterprises with 48 struggling families, providing scholarships, medical subsidies, vocational training and follow-up employment support.

Beyond government bodies, 6,661 social organizations, 4,365 private enterprises, and more than 500,000 volunteers and caring individuals have joined the initiative.

Through the program, Xu Bin, deputy director of the Party Conduct and Government Supervision Office of the Gansu Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, became the "caring father" of Haohao (his nickname), a boy raised by his elderly grandfather after losing parental care. Xu regularly visited the family, attended school meetings and encouraged the boy through handwritten letters and daily conversations.

"The support was never about charity. It was about companionship, bringing the warmth of family to a child who lacked it," Xu said, adding that the experience had also been "a valuable lesson" for his own child.

The initiative has also inspired broader community participation and helped expand localized social care networks. In Minle county, Zhangye city, Zhang Xiaoyan, head of the Future Star Social Work Service Center, turned her own experience raising a left-behind child into long-term public welfare work.

After the center was established in 2023, alongside the launch of the pairing assistance initiative, Zhang and her team visited 172 villages and created records for 325 vulnerable children, providing psychological counseling, emotional companionship, and daily assistance.

"One child hugged me and cried, saying, 'Mom Zhang, I don't want you to leave,'" Zhang recalled. "At that moment, I realized I had gained more than 80 children."

The organization has also expanded its services to elderly villagers, organizing volunteer teams to deliver fresh vegetables, holiday meals and companionship to seniors living alone.

Gansu officials say the next phase of the initiative will focus on building sustainable sub-brands in education, employment and elderly care, while encouraging broader public participation to turn acts of kindness into a long-term mechanism for social governance.