A SUCCESS STORY: A boy and his mother come to the Rainbow Social Work Service Agency to thank Fan Yanning (right), the agency's founder, for helps from its workers (COURTESY OF RAINBOW SOCIAL WORK SERVICE AGENCY)	MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION: Yang Yuanyuan (standing), a social worker with the Rainbow Social Work Service Agency, chats with midnight drifters at an Internet cafe in Beijing's Haidian District, on March 15 (COURTESY OF RAINBOW SOCIAL WORK SERVICE AGENCY)

As midnight approaches, Beijing's bustling streets gradually quiet down as the city falls asleep. But Zhang Xiao and his colleagues set out for their nightly mission.

Zhang and his colleagues are social workers with the Rainbow Social Work Service Agency in Haidian District, Beijing. Every week from 11 p.m. Thursday to 4 a.m. the next morning they patrol Internet cafes, bars, night clubs and other entertainment and catering facilities in Haidian that are open around the clock, to search for young people who hang out and offer them help.

The Overnight Outreach program, the first of its kind in Beijing, started in February. In the past four months, Rainbow's workers visited almost all the target facilities in the 22 neighborhoods in Haidian where young night crawlers may linger.

The program was inspired by a similar program that has been carried out since 2001 by Youth Outreach, a non-profit organization in Hong Kong.

Spending an entire night out is considered misbehavior for minors under China's Law on Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency.

The law stipulates that if a minor stays out at night without permission, his or her parents, other guardians or boarding school should search for the minor, or seek help from the police. In addition, anyone accommodating minors staying out at all night should get consent from his or her parents or other guardians, the minor's boarding school or the police.

Yet many profit-hungry entertainment facilities that open overnight are ignorant of the law or they just ignore it.

Beijing-based Legal Daily cited sources with the People's Procuratorate of Haidian District as saying that Internet cafés have virtually become a gathering place and hotbed for juvenile delinquents. "Many crime gang members first met each other at Internet cafes…they often spend nights at Internet cafes, parks and small inns," it reported.

Night drifters

Social workers and volunteers carrying out the Overnight Outreach program work in two groups of six each.

"At Internet cafes and electronic game bars, we disguise ourselves as customers. We pay and pretend to play games while looking for our targets," said Zhang, who is a group leader.

During one night out, Zhang and his colleagues met a 14-year-old boy surnamed Bai who was playing video games at a game room situated on the second floor of a grocery market late at night.

To start a conversation with Bai, one of the social workers pretended to be a green-hand player and asked Bai how to play the game. Then they chatted about themselves.

In the conversation, Bai revealed that he already dropped out of school. His parents were migrant workers who made a living by selling vegetables in the grocery market, and Bai often played in the game room till midnight.

The first time they met Bai, the social workers did not disclose their real identify, nor did they persuade Bai to go home. "We prefer to get acquainted first," Zhang said.

He said that many of the problems involving young people cannot be solved overnight, so social workers should be patient and make friends with them first.

Zhang said that so far they had encountered Bai three times during their nights out. Recently, they saw Bai gambling at a slot machine. The social workers managed to find Bai's father at the grocery store and had a talk with him. The father told them that he was aware of his son's game playing at midnight, but for now he did not think it an outrageously inappropriate behavior. Zhang said that they would continue to communicate with Bai and his family and see what they can do to help Bai.

During their nights out over the past four months, Rainbow's social workers met more than 100 adolescents. According to Zhang, about 30 percent of them are Beijing natives, who tend to indulge themselves in KTV bars and catering facilities, while 70 percent are migrant children or youth, who usually loiter at Internet cafes.

But many of the adolescents were not familiar with the work of social workers, and some did not trust them. Zhang said that so far, only about 10 young people they met had requested for their help.

"Once we met a boy who fled from home after a quarrel with his parents. We told the boy that we were social workers, showed our work ID and offered him free temporary accommodation, yet the boy did not trust us and turned down our offer," Zhang said.