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Mo Feng could have been working as a doctor at the Shenzhen Disease Control and Prevention Centre in South China's Guangdong Province, with a comfortable salary of 6,000 yuan (US$723) per month.

Instead, the 22-year-old Mo, who graduated from Peking University's Health Science Centre last June, chose to volunteer in the country's impoverished western regions.

More than 4,000 university graduates made the same decision last year and joined the volunteer programme organized by the Communist Youth League of China.

The programme is intended to provide the talent-starved western regions with voluntary services provided by young professionals.

As the one-year programme is due to end next month, most of the volunteers have chosen to stay and serve one more year.

"The sense of being needed is what strikes me most," Mo said.

"Before my voluntary service in a State-listed impoverished county in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the local epidemic prevention station had never had a college graduate working there," he said.

The volunteer work goes beyond the public health sector. The western regions lack professionals in all fields.

According to official statistics, although the population of the 12 western provinces and autonomous regions accounts for 28.8 per cent of that of the whole country, they have only 15.5 per cent of the country's educated professionals or skilled workers. Voluntary service from college graduates is thus especially welcomed.

Statistics show that among the 16,543 unfilled vacancies reported by western regions last year, education accounted for 43.7 per cent of the total, followed by public health (20.2 per cent) and farming technology (19.3 per cent).

As the only college graduate in the small county's epidemic prevention station, Mo said he was soon appointed assistant to the station director.

In the second half of last year he was dispatched to a nearby city to be trained in SARS prevention. After his training concluded, Mo toured the rural districts, lecturing grassroots epidemic prevention staff.

"They paid so much attention to my words in the lectures that some wrote down everything I scribbled on the blackboard," he said. "It really made me feel attached to something of great importance."

Besides public health, education is another sector extremely short of well-educated people in the impoverished west.

According to statistics from the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, which has sponsored programmes sending volunteers to provide service in the western regions, the highest demand is for teachers.

Feng Ai, a graduate of Shanghai-based Fudan University, has been a volunteer teacher in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

During her year in Ningxia, Feng worked with five other volunteers, teaching at a high school.

The six of them often arranged to give additional lectures to students on weekends.

But last year Feng was sent to Zhanhe County of Yunnan Province to teach alone at a high school.

"I teach 30 hours each week and 28 days each month. Preparing lessons, teaching and grading students' homework, I am very busy," she said.

But without the volunteers, local teachers would be even busier and students would not be able to get enough lectures.

Feng's students usually have to spend an entire day walking from home to school. Seeing their hardship, Feng said she had no qualms about giving up her weekends to work.

Volunteers praised

The hard-working volunteers have won high praise from officials in the western regions.

"Volunteers have helped a lot in our county, which is extremely short of talents," said Wu Yadong, vice-magistrate of Ziyun County in Southwest China's Guizhou Province.

Schools, factories and other units that have benefited from volunteer help have reported more vacancies this year and are seeking additional volunteers, Wu said.

"In just a few days our county gathered 300 unfilled vacancies waiting for volunteers, and the education sector alone needs at least 200 teachers," he said.

So far, this year's programme has received more than 34,000 unfilled vacancies reported by the 12 western provinces and autonomous regions - twice the number of 2003.

Faced with the increased demand for professionals, the Central Committee of Communist Youth League said it will continue to send 6,000 young volunteers this year.

"In addition to the 4,000 volunteers who went to the western regions last year and wished to stay for another year, the number of volunteers serving in western China will reach a total of 10,000 later this year," said Zhao Yong, a member of the central committee.

So far, more than 49,000 college graduates have applied to join the programme, an increase of 13.4 per cent over last year.

Rewarding programme

Mo said he wants to settle down and work in the western regions for the rest of his life.

"It is because I saw the huge gap between the developed east and the poor west with my own eyes," he said.

Mo's parents, farmers living in the countryside of South China's Guangdong Province, are not wealthy. And he said his short stay in Inner Mongolia has made him realize how disease is linked with poverty.

He has known a girl who suffered hydrocephalus. Treatment cost her family 10,000 yuan (US$1,200), but their annual income is only a little more than 1,000 yuan (US$120).

"I really worry about how that girl's family can make a living in the next 10 years," he said. "As a doctor, I should stay to help them get rid of poverty."

Feng Ai said after returning from Ningxia to Shanghai, she looked at those farmers-turned-workers with new respect.

"To me, the migrants are now a group of people who leave home for cities to earn money in order to provide a better life for their families. They deserve our respect," Feng said.

Wishing to continue helping rural residents, Feng has twice applied to volunteer in the west. Born and raised in Beijing, she has adapted to life in Ningxia and Yunnan.

The rural school where she worked has no shower facilities, so she and other volunteers had to wait for at least one week to go to the county seat to take a bath.

"It is bearable though, because the winter there is quite long. It snows from October to April, and the temperature is about 20 degrees below zero," she said.

The village in Ningxia where she volunteered is also a place with a high occurrence of hepatitis B. "We had to drink a bitter traditional Chinese medicine often to prevent infection," she said.

Feng said illness is the greatest fear among volunteers in Yunnan.

The village where she teaches is 3,000 metres above sea level and the daily temperature variance is often more than 25 degrees. "So every time we go to the county seat, we buy a lot of medicine," she said.

But compared with local children, Feng said the hardships she endures are not really hardships at all.

"The dormitory for my students in Yunnan is made of wood, has no windows, and there are cracks in the walls wider than a man's fist," she said.

The students sleep on tattered bedding, and some are so poor that they use gunny sacks for beds.

"And I cannot forget how a mother encouraged her child to study hard," Feng said. "She told her daughter to study hard, so that she can wear a pair of leather shoes like me, which I bought at the cost of only 38 yuan (US$4.60) at the county town.

"Many people have asked me why I volunteer in Yunnan instead of living a comfortable life in Shanghai. Inside my heart, I want to tell them that being a volunteer in the western regions is to know what happiness really is.

"And I believe most volunteers share the same feeling. I know the lives of some people there have changed because of my devotion."