Meet Joy

A forty minute drive from Xinyang, Longjing Township is the home of Joy, a twelve-year-old girl in the seventh grade. Her family’s financial situation is dire. Due to a long battle with diabetes and a constant regimen of costly medication (200-500 yuan per month), Joy’s father is unable to perform physical labor. Her mother suffered from polio as a child and is paralyzed and unable to walk.

Because their own house collapsed from disrepair and neither parent can work, the family lives in a small home with the family of Joy’s uncle. Also living with them is the eighty-year-old uncle of her grandfather who has no other family members to care for him.

Joy’s financial situation is incredibly troubling. Her family cannot afford a place to live or their medication, let alone Joy’s school fees and boarding in the dormitory at school. The school waived her school fees, which provides textbooks, but she is still responsible to provide room and board, school supplies, insurance, and milk.

The school is 15 kilometers from Joy’s home. She spends 1.6 yuan to eat breakfast, eating porridge and cabbage. Sometimes, she also gets to eat noodles and baozi. For lunch she eats only dry noodles because she can purchase 21 packages of dry noodles (think Raman) for 15 yuan to save money. She has no place to cook them at school, so she eats them dry. The school does provide a lunch of eggs and meat for 2.1 yuan per day, but it is too costly. Joy’s evening meal is similar to her breakfast.

After studying Monday through Friday, Joy makes the 15 km trek home to spend the weekend with her family. It would cost her 2 yuan to take a bus home from school, so this luxury is saved for days with severe weather. On the weekend, she helps her family by doing household and farming chores. She will have to help the family bring in the crops during autumn harvest.

China Service Ventures is blessed to be able to assist in the support of Joy and her education.  Would you like to help support Joy and others like her?  Join us here.