Ms. Zhang Han (2013-2014)

Location: Beijing

Year of Foundation: 2012

Beneficiary: children in the countryside

Main Activities: providing critical illness covers to children in the countryside to make sure that ill children in the countryside get sufficient medical treatment

Critical Illness Project is a charitable project that brings together insurers, donors and local governments to provide free critical illness insurance to the young and uninsured. Critical Illness is one of the most common causes for family hardship, and has become one of the most acutesocial ills that dragged hard working families back to abject poverty. But due to the lack of information and the under-appreciation of this situation,commercial insurers are not incentivized to provide cover. Even if they do,many families are usually not able to afford them.

Since launching in 2012, the Project has quickly gained traction in China, having gained enough support to cover four counties aspioneer regions, providing critical illness covers of up to RMB 200,000 (£20K)per person to over 115,186 children. They expect to increase the regions undercover to seven to eight, and children helped from 150,000 to 200,000 by the end of 2013.

Ms. ZHANG Han, serves as the Chief Executive of Critical Illness Project. She has accumulated over 10 years professional work experience in project management, human resources and communications when joining the Critical illness Project in 2012, and she is firmly committed to the cause as her personal choice of exercising her citizen duty in helping China’s progressas a civil society.