Parents of children with cerebral palsy are going to have a place to turn for help, as the first public foundation to provide aid has been set up in north China's Shanxi Province.

The Brain Rehabilitation Fund was established on Saturday by the China Population Welfare Foundation (CPWF), which is headquartered in Beijing. The CPWF will cooperate with the Shanxi Cerebral Palsy Hospital, which specializes in curing the brain disease with therapies such as acupuncture and massage.

Lan Ye, the deputy secretary general of the CPWF, said the fund aims to relieve the burden of affected families by providing financial assistance and training so parents are able to do the therapy at home. In addition, the fund hopes to reduce the incidence of cerebral palsy by publicizing preventative measures to thwart the disease.

More than 6 million suffer from cerebral palsy in China, and among them more than 2 million are children, said Guo Xinzhi, vice president of the Shanxi's Federation of the Disabled.

"A family needs to spend more than 500,000 yuan ($77,000) to cure a child with the disease," Guo said. "As 70 percent of the children with cerebral palsy are from poor, mountainous areas, more than 25.7 percent of families cannot afford to pay the medical expenses."

On Saturday, 25 parents from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Fujian, Henan and Shanxi provinces came to the hospital for free training on helping their children to recover at home.

(Xinhua News Agency May 28, 2011)