Guangxi's Malnourished Children

(Du'an) - The cupboards are empty and the stoves are off. Twice a day at the Sanzhiyang Elementary School teachers help students stack their tin lunch pails into a steamer. The lunch pails contain only rice, topped off with a handful of soybeans.

Just two years ago, the elementary school located in the Sanzhiyang Township of the Guangxi Zhang Autonomous Region had meals that contained more than grain. But since a change in the food subsidy program changed the transfer of payment from food vouchers to cash deposits in 2009, the school's nearly 400 students no longer have sources of vitamins from meat or vegetables in their daily meals.

In this bucolic mountain valley setting of the Yao Autonomous County of Du'an, children that aren't boarders at the school walk up to half a day to attend classes. Their homes are scattered deep in the mountains.