Fashion firm primps rural ambitions

Zhang Zhuo says whenever she attends a friend or relative's wedding, she adores the bride's makeup and dress. Like most girls, she loves beauty. But the junior college student from a poor family in Hongdou village, Shifang city in Sichuan province, could not afford expensive cosmetics. Every morning, she simply paints her lips and eye brows facing a small mirror in her dorm at Polus International College, at suburban Chengdu.

When she saw the notice that China Youth Development Foundation and the French cosmetics company L'Oreal will launch a free three-month training of makeup and beauty care on the campus, she immediately went to apply.

Zhang and 39 other students passed the audition and will start the training in March. The jury - including school officials, representatives from the CYDF and L'Oreal - does not require the applicants to have particular skills in makeup or hairstyling. Instead, they try to find students from poor families, short on financial support but with self-respect, confidence and ambition to lead a decent life.