Girl, 9, recycles garbage to save sick mom

By Jane Chen | April 22, 2010, Thursday |

Online Edition

A NINE-YEAR-OLD girl in central China has been recycling garbage for three years to help raise funds to save her terminally ill mother.

Gong Linjun, a Tujia ethnic girl in Hunan Province's Zhangjiajie City, said she will keep working to save her mother, today's Xiaoxiang Morning Post reported.

Gong's mother Zhou Xu'e was diagnosed with uremia - a fatal disease that could result in kidney failure - in 2007. She needs to undergo dialysis twice a week to prolong her life, which costs more than 3,000 yuan (US$439.40) a month.

To help raise the money, Gong's father, who has a severe liver disease, left home to work elsewhere, leaving the six-year-old to care for her sick mother and do all the household chores.

On the road to school and back each day, she picks up plastic bottles and cans and sells them at recycling stations, usually earning 20 yuan a day, the report said.

Despite her tough life, Gong has an excellent academic record, according to her teacher Li Saiqin.

"Gong is normally the first to reach school in the morning and does all the cleaning in the classroom before other pupils arrive," she said.

About 100,000 yuan in cash and goods has been donated to Gong and her mother in the past three years since her story was first covered by the Xiaoxiang Morning Post.

Gong recorded every donation, ranging from several thousand yuan to an apple and an orange, from more than 3,000 people.

Nation

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Girl, 9, recycles garbage to save sick mom

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