China's Migrant Rural Workers Aid Fund was launched by Chinese Red Cross Foundation with the cooperation of other enterprises. Its aim is to offer different levels of assistance to migrant rural workers. Primarily, the Fund was established to help those that have suffered from major accidental injury or disability at work, or those who have serious diseases which have disabled their ability to work. Secondly, the fund provides basic knowledge about health and basic skills to educate rural migrant workers.

Migrant rural workers are a group of people that is “typical Chinese” as they are a huge group comprised of about 200,000,000 production forces from the countryside. They are responsible for the farming during the busy seasons in the countryside and they come to larger cities to become the builder of the city during the idle seasons. They thus take double burden from their families in the village and from their work in the cities. They in fact have become very important work force for the cities development.

Migrant rural workers contribute about 200,000,000 people to the production force in the countryside. This large group can be seen as the “typical Chinese” person. These people are responsible for farming during the busy seasons in the countryside and come to larger cities as construction workers during the idle seasons, which make them very important for the development of the cities. However, this creates a double burden because they often must leave their families for this type of work.

Unfortunately, under the current social welfare system, the migrants’ living conditions are very primitive due to their extensive work load, drifting state, and poor accommodation. In addition, they have to face other problems such as difficulties finding schooling for their children, medical care problems (as they are not included in the current medical care system in the city), and lack of protection of personal rights.

The CRCF, co-sponsored by some enterprises, established a new program the “Migrant Rural Workers Aid Fund” in 2007.Under the guideline of the Red Cross, this program was set up to care for the minorities that need help the most.