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Happy Project Gives Mothers Pride

The great mathematician Archimedes said: "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world."

About 89.5 percent of the families involved in the Programme of Happiness have used the programme as a lever to successfully escape poverty, according to an evaluation released on July 27 by an evaluation team composed of experts from Tsinghua University, according to Xinhua News Agency.

In China, millions of mothers are struggling to care for poverty-stricken families. The Programme of Happiness, a project especially set up to help impoverished mothers, has helped them secure the levers and fulcrums they need by lending them money and by paving the way to self-support.

The programme was launched a decade ago in Beijing by the non-profit China Population Welfare Foundation, the China Family Planning Association and China Population Daily. By the end of 2004, the programme had distributed 260 million yuan (US$32.1 million) to about 150,000 poor Chinese mothers in 341 counties thereby benefiting as many as 600,000 people.