At the age of seven, Lina was diagnosed with congenital heart disease. It was not until ten years later when she became 17 years old, she direly needed surgery and it was finally performed successfully with the funding and support from Little Red Scarf Alliance (www.littleredscarf.org). After surgery, Lina took a year leave of absence to recover and to restore. Now she is back to school as a sophomore student and in good health. Lina's father worked in Ningxia in 2009 as a migrant worker. One day, the rope at the job site suddenly snapped and her father fell down from the crane, causing serious injuries to the head and waist. Now, he can only do some simple farm work. Lina's mother suffers from rheumatoid disease, can not take any real job either. Her brother is 15 years old this year and attended a middle school in the neighboring village.

Zhongshe's school grades are very good, and outside of classes Zhongshe loves to study and read. However, because of his congenital heart disease, he has had no choice but to take time out of school. Though already 16, Zhongshe was only just in 8th grade. When Zhongshe was 1 year old, he contracted pneumonia twice. However, his family did not find out he had congenital heart disease until April this year, when he was diagnosed during a village-level medical screening. Zhongshe's mother is also quite frail, and often suffers from headaches. She also has to take medicine regularly for her bad gallbladder. For Zhongshe's operation, the family took out a high-interest loan of 40,000 RMB. His sister left home to work for 3 months and earned a total of 2000 RMB for his operation, but they were cheated out of this money. His father has taken up some temporary work nearby whilst looking after the family.