'Rose Fund' helps women pay for cosmetic surgery

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-06 23:48

BEIJING -- More than 70 disfigured women received cosmetic surgery with the support of the "Rose Fund" last year, according to the Chinese Women's Development Foundation.

"It's the 'Rose Fund' that helped my damaged face gradually become normal. But more importantly, it opened my mind and helped me find my confidence," Xiong Li, among the first group of applicants who received the funds, said at a meeting held here Friday to mark the first anniversary of the fund.

The 29-year-old Xiong is a folk artist in central China's Hubei Province. She was seriously burnt during a car accident in December 2006. Without enough money to pay for surgery, Xiong turned to the fund for help. After two rounds of successful cosmetic surgery between March to July, 2008, most of her facial skin was transplanted and recovered.

Xiong said she was grateful to the fund and hoped more sisters could benefit from it. She said at the media conference held here Friday on the first anniversary of the foundation.

In 2007, the China Beauty & Fashion Newspaper, along with more than 20 domestic media groups and the EverCare Medical Group for Cosmetic Surgery, set up the country's first campaign called "China Rose Movement" to support women who are disfigured but without enough money for surgery.

The Chinese Women's Development Foundation, a national non-profit organization, joint the campaign to set up the "Rose Fund" on March 7, 2008.

During the one year since its foundation, some 3,000 women applied for the fund and more than 70 successfully received cosmetic surgery.

According to the foundation, in 2009 the fund will focus on supporting impoverished female college graduates who lost their jobs because of disfigurement.

He Yongzhi, president of the country's washing machine giant Little Swan, promised to offer 100 posts for women supported by the fund.