CREATIVITY MEETS CHARITY: Zhao Weiwei (right) receives an air ticket from Beijing to Copenhagen, his award for winning the Kopenhagen Fur Accessories Design Competition in Beijing on October 26 (WANG JING)

Zhao Weiwei, a student of fashion design at the prestigious China Central Academy of Fine Arts, is one of the most acclaimed young designers in China. At the Kopenhagen Fur Accessories Design Competition, which culminated in an award ceremony in Beijing on October 26, Zhao's design—a fur hat that could also be worn as a light shawl—won the top honor. However, compared with the title, what made Zhao even more excited was that most of the items from the design competition were sold and all the proceeds were donated to the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) to purchase school supplies for children who lack the means.

This Love Parcel charity program was launched nationwide in 2009 to help children in poor or disaster-prone areas. Across China, people participated in the program by purchasing generic love parcels containing stationery and teaching aids and mailing them to children in need. Parcels with stationery for fine arts classes cost 100 yuan ($16.05) each and parcels with teaching aids for physics or music classes cost 1,000 yuan ($161) each. People could also donate money to children in need through the program's website.

The parcels for fine arts classes total 185 items, including colored pencils, a pencil case, notebooks, erasers and a school bag. The music class parcel has 21 items including a keyboard, a speaker, a DVD player and a drum, while the physical education class parcel has 60 items, including badminton sets, table tennis sets, basketballs, footballs, relay batons and a stopwatch.

Before entering China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2008, Zhao lived in his hometown of Yucheng County in central Henan Province, one of the least developed counties in China. Although Zhao is from a relatively well-off family, it pained him to see some of his classmates unable to afford basic school supplies and textbooks.

"Inside these parcels are notebooks, pencils and erasers, which most of us take for granted. However, these are luxuries or even dreams come true to children in many poor areas," Zhao said.

Since Zhao is the champion of the contest, what pleased him was that his gold medal-winning work sold at a high price shortly after the charity bazaar started, which could be used to purchase many supplies packages.

Nearly 40 award-winning works created by students of the Academy of Art & Design at Tsinghua University and ESMOD Beijing also sold out at the charity auction. According to organizers of the design competition and charity bazaar, Kopenhagen Fur and China International Clothing & Accessory Fair, proceeds have paid for several hundred supplies packages.

"We are happy to see that many young designers are eager to participate in the charity auction in this contest. Their passion for charity is very well suited for Kopenhagen Fur's corporate social responsibility. We sincerely hope these young designers will carry on this idea in the coming journey in their lives," said Kenneth Loberg, Sales and Marketing Director of Kopenhagen Fur.

With the theme of Wonder-Fur Life, Kopenhagen Fur Accessories Design Competition aims to promote a whole new way of life known as LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability), a trendy lifestyle prevailing among China's youth.

An anonymous worker of the CFPA said that the contest highlights both creativity and charity, as promising young designers, who are the future elites of the fashion industry, will become supporters of charity causes and attract more participants with their influence.

Extensive help

"So far, the Love Parcel program has had more than 1 million donors, 80 percent of whom are ordinary people," said Yan Zhitao, Deputy Director of the CFPA's Donations Department.

According to the CFPA's surveys on donors, 90 percent of the respondents said that their donations were made without any influence from governmental advocates.

The original inspiration for the Love Parcel program is a temporary post-earthquake relief program. After an 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan County, Sichuan, on May 12, 2008, the CFPA partnered with post offices near its headquarters in Beijing to sell charity New Year cards to the public at the end of 2008. These greeting cards were sold at 10 yuan ($1.61) apiece and 5.5 yuan ($0.88) were donated to a scholarship program for primary school students in areas affected by the earthquake. Each card is printed with the name and address of a recipient student in an earthquake-affected area. The CFPA eventually sold 110,000 cards.