Alleviating poverty cannot be done only with government subsidies. It requires education of the poor on how they can raise their living conditions. Millions of volunteers across China have been indispensable in helping the poor improve their lives.

In today's "30 in 30" series, we look at a massive 1994 campaign that sent young volunteers to rural areas to give peasants the professional skills they needed.

In northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, volunteers formed hundreds of service teams, traveling to the most remote and underdeveloped areas. They held free training courses and demonstrated the latest technology to farmers. They also distributed tens of thousands of books and manuals. In just a year's time, 80,000 farmers in the region benefited from the campaign.

Volunteers in nearby Gansu Province held similar activities, but with even more intensity. The region organized 8,000 groups to train 600,000 farmers. They spread central government-recommended agricultural technologies and techniques to farmers across this arid province.