Benefits

Binying was monitored from the age of 4 months. "The program benefited Binying's growth a lot," Li said. "She is half-a-head taller than a relative's boy of the same age."

When the program's first period concluded at the end of last year－the second is being planned－Save the Children invited the Rural Education Action Program to assess the beginning, middle and end using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, which measure mental and physical development, including cognitive, motor and language skills.

Contrasts of the first and middle evaluations indicated that infants aided by the program performed better in all three areas than children who didn't participate, but particularly their cognitive skills.

The assessments also suggested that the more they were visited at home, the better the children developed.

Zhan Jialu, a village worker in Dade, a small settlement in Zhanyi, visited 3-year-old Zheng Menghan for 28 months.

"Menghan often asked when 'grandpa', as she called Zhan, would come, because she loved the toys he brought. We can't afford to buy lots of toys," said Chen Qiurong, Menghan's mother, whose family earns about 70,000 yuan a year.

"I feel Menghan's memory has improved, and she quickly recognizes colors and shapes," Chen said, recalling her daughter's situation before the program began. "She is also more lively and willing to talk to others."

Expert appraisal

During the program's first period, the local government and Save the Children selected 45 people to become village workers. "We invited parenting experts to provide two-day training sessions for them twice a year," said Li Dan, program officer for Early Childhood Care and Development at Save the Children.

Li Cai, former director of the Zhanyi family planning bureau, said, "To guarantee the quality of the services the village workers provided, supervisors checked their home visits and provided assessments that affected their monthly allowance and annual bonus."

Cai Jianhua, Party chief of the official training center at the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said: "China's economic development will rely on the younger generation, so rural infants must receive adequate nutrition and child care. That's why we adopted the pilot program and hope to promote it nationwide."

Now, the experts are assessing what they learned during the program's first period, and plan to establish a care center in a community with a larger number of infants.

"Such a center would allow village workers to share their child care knowledge and skills with a larger number of caregivers, which would save time and money," Li Cai said.