On July 15, a conference was held in Shijiazhuang Posts and Telecommunications Technical College (SPTTC) to promote the employment of financially disadvantaged college graduates under the Rain-Dew Anti-poverty Campaign. The conference was guided by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, and organized by Hebei Provincial Poverty Alleviation and Development Office and SPTTC. The theme of the conference is to mobilize social forces extensively, provide targeted employment assistance, stop intergenerational transmission of poverty, and achieve poverty alleviation through labor skill. Ou Qingping, Deputy Director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, pointed out in his speech that at present, the fight against poverty has entered a critical period. The remaining tasks are not only to alleviate the over 10 million poverty-stricken population, but also, and more importantly, to improve the quality of the poverty alleviation work and consolidate the previous achievements. Representatives from China Post Group, Hebei and Guangdong Provincial Poverty Alleviation and Development Offices and Xingtai College of Technicians of Hebei Province made exchanging speeches at the conference respectively.

In accordance with the fixed-point poverty alleviation project, China Post relies on its affiliated institution SPTTC and the superior resources of the postal enterprises, adopts the approach of college-enterprise cooperation, and has created a unique poverty alleviation model of "education + employment" for its designated poverty alleviation areas, Shangzhou District and Luonan County, Shangluo City of Shaanxi Province. This model has yielded great results in helping people increase confidence in their own ability to lift themselves out of poverty and get access to the education they need to do so, which received unanimous praise from the leaders and representatives at the conference.

Ou Qingping pointed out that poverty alleviation through education is one of the five important approaches of targeted poverty alleviation. As a concrete measure of poverty alleviation through education, vocational education can not only improve the occupational skills, enhance the population quality , but also secure stable employment and sustained income increase. Therefore, it is an effective way to stimulate people’s endogenous motivation, cut off the intergenerational transmission of poverty, improve the quality and consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation. Since the beginning of the fight against poverty, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development has listed vocational education and training as one of the ten projects of targeted poverty alleviation. Together with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, it has issued related guidelines and has taken a series of actions to encourage the disadvantaged youth to receive vocational education. By the end of 2018, a total of 5.28 million young men from poor families had received vocational education. Once they stabilize their employment, they can drive nearly 20 million poverty-stricken population out of poverty. Thus, the poverty alleviation through education assistance has achieved remarkable results. Ou Qingping praised the effort SPTTC has made in this field. He said, as the only vocational college directly attached to China Post, SPTTC has been training a large number of postal talents for postal enterprises nationwide. More importantly, China Post and SPTTC have made important contributions to poverty alleviation. This shows that they have responded to what the CPC Central Committee and the State Council calls for and actively engaged in the fight against poverty, a specific example of their fulfillment of social responsibilities as a social force.

As to how to assist the college graduates in Rain-Dew Anti-poverty Campaign, Ou Qingping put forward five requirements:

• Focus on helping the junior or senior middle school graduates who have failed to pursue further study to complete vocational education and get a stable job.
• Give full play to the main role of the market, and mobilize the participation of social forces.
• Provide employment assistance under the East-West poverty alleviation cooperation mechanism.
• Organize and motivate more disadvantaged students to receive vocational education.
• Summarize and popularize the typical experience of the Rain-Dew Anti-poverty Campaign timely.

Shi Qingshuang, Vice Governor of Hebei Province, said in his speech that after this conference, Hebei province would work out more practical and detailed measures of poverty alleviation through education and employment and carry them out in a targeted and sustained manner, so as to ensure all the remaining poverty-stricken population to be lifted out of poverty.

Li Pizheng, Deputy Secretary of the Leading Party Members’ Group of China Post，said in an exchanging speech that the disadvantaged students admitted to SPTTC were exempted from tuition and fees and were granted with living allowances. After graduation, they would be accepted by postal enterprises. Therefore, to these students, admitted by SPTTC means recruited by postal enterprises, graduation means employment. Moreover, their stable job in the postal enterprises may further help their families out of poverty. Under the special poverty alleviation mode of "education + employment", SPTTC has so far enrolled 96 financially disadvantaged students, and another 50 are planned for the new semester.

For the development of these students, SPTTC has deeply analyzed their foundation of knowledge, tailored development plans according to the requirements of their targeted positions in the postal enterprises, and focused on cultivating both their ethics and their skills through the collaboration of teachers, counsellors and advisors. The college arranges for the students’ internship in Shangluo Postal Branch during summer and winter holidays, enabling them to become real talents with practical skills that meet the requirements of postal enterprises.

It is reported that China Post has also directed great efforts in poverty alleviation through e-commerce, financial services and non-profit projects, and made some achievement in these aspects. Up to now, the postal enterprises nationwide has carried out 2,594 e-commerce poverty alleviation projects, helping farmers generate an income of 890 million yuan (about $128.27 million) and benefiting more than 460,000 needy people. The Postal Savings Bank of China has granted 119.4 billion yuan (about $17.21 billion) of targeted poverty alleviation loans (including loans for those who have just been lifted out of poverty), with a loan balance of 65.4 billion yuan (about $9.43 billion), which has directly lifted over 300,000 poverty-stricken families out of poverty. The non-profit Care Package project has raised a total of 700 million yuan (about $101 million), benefiting 6 million students from 28,000 schools in 853 counties nationwide. The non-profit Mother’s Parcel Post project has raised 130 million yuan (about $18.73 million) and distributed more than 884,000 parcels to the needy mothers in 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities). The PSBC Charity platform has accumulatively raised a total of 21.1 million yuan (about $3.041 million), started classes of the PSBC New Great Wall project in high schools in 33 poverty-stricken counties throughout the country, and sponsored 2,459 disadvantaged high school students and 759 university freshmen.

The Rain-Dew Anti-poverty Project is a human resources development project organized by the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development. By providing subsidies for the young labor force in rural poor families to encourage them to receive modern vocational education, this project has helped improve the skills and in turn the quality of the poverty-stricken population. Thereby it promotes the stable employment and sustained income increase of the poor, stimulates their endogenous motivation, cuts off the intergenerational transmission of poverty, and finally achieves the goal of one person's employment lifting the whole family out of poverty.

At the meeting, the launching ceremony of "Young Eagle Action" was held. This action is launched by the Social Participation in Poverty Alleviation and Development of China, together with xiaopin.com, liepin.com, zhaopin.com, dajie.com and so on. It will carry out online employment assistance to the Rain-Dew Anti-poverty project college graduates, speeds up the targeted connection between these graduates and social enterprises, and promotes their high-quality and stable employment.