Toyota Motor Co. Ltd. on Tuesday donated 20 million yuan (around 2.4 million U.S. dollars) to the Soong Ching-ling Foundation (SCLF), to support a number of poor Chinese college students for the next five years.

The SCLF Vice-Chairman Yu Guilin said that the donation will be delivered to students at 20 Chinese universities in central and western regions of the country. Every school year, 10 students will be selected from a single university and given financial support of 5,000 yuan (around 602 U.S. dollars).

One student could receive financial support from the fund for five years. The fund could help a total of 1,000 students.

Yu pointed out that the fund will also help poor students to attend social functions so that they could improve their all-round personality for the future.

Uranishi Tokuichi, vice-president of Toyota Motor Co. Ltd., said that Toyota is willing to play a more positive role as an "enterprise citizen" in China, by actively participating in Chinese civil affairs.

Yu stressed that the nurturing of personnel is of great importance to realize the goal of building a harmonious society in China. Therefore, the SCLF will join hands with more local and overseas enterprises, to better serve the Chinese young people.

He pointed out that the SCLF has set up a series of aid programs for poor college students since 2002. So far, the relevant aid programs have collected 60 million yuan (around 7.2 million U.S. dollars).

Soong, born in Shanghai in 1893, was the wife of the Chinese revolutionary Dr. Sun Yat-sen, who led the 1911 Revolution, the Chinese democratic revolution which overthrew the imperial Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and put an end to more than 2,000 years of feudal rule in China.

Soong was an outstanding stateswoman as former honorary president of China and a renowned activist in public affairs. She contributed a lot to the cause of reunification of the motherland and the welfare of Chinese women and children. She died in Beijing on May 29, 1981.

Source: Xinhua