Charity helps inmates' children

Red Apple Public Welfare set up four years ago after founder learned scale of problem

Lin Minming trains prison officers at work and runs a charity organization helping inmates' children in his spare time.

"I like to hear the children we're helping calling me Uncle Bear, my nickname in the organization. I've learned a lot," Lin, 46, said.

He decided to help inmates' children in 2013, after prison officers he was training in Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province, told him some prisoners were worried their children were not receiving sufficient education and care.

Lin, who works for the Fujian Justice Bureau's prison officers' training center in Fuzhou, began researching the plight of inmates' children living in poverty and found the problem was far more serious than he imagined.

He was shocked to read data from the Ministry of Justice from 2005 that said there were over 600,000 children of prisoners across China, that 90 percent had never received any form of outside help and that 13 percent had dropped out of school.

To make matters worse, some children without guardians followed their parents' path to prison. Lin said that was "the biggest tragedy, which I don't want to see".

He founded Red Apple Public Welfare in June 2014 to start helping prisoners' children. Lin learns about inmates' family concerns from the officers he trains at the center, then arranges visits to families that apply for aid to evaluate their situation and verify that they need help.

If a family's yearly income is less than 6,000 yuan ($880), Lin's team can help its children by providing financial, psychological and legal aid.

The help offered by the charity has been welcomed by the Fujian Prison Management Bureau, and Red Apple has operated in all 18 prisons across the province since 2016.

"When inmates know their children are having a good life outside, they'll feel at ease and have better rehabilitation in prison," Lin said. "That's why I always say what I'm doing is killing two birds with one stone."