Yang Yan (1st R), a techer, helps distribute food for students at lunch time at the classroom of Shimen central primary school in Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China's Gansu Province, March 12, 2012. A total of 14,132 students from 137 elementary and secondary schools in Tianzhu have been offered free lunch every day since this spring as part of a new government initiative to improve nutrition for rural students. The 16-billion-yuan (2.53 billion U.S. dollars) program was initiated in autumn 2011 and covers 680 poverty-stricken cities and counties in northwest China, allowing 26 million students to receive free meals for the duration of their compulsory education, which lasts from primary school to junior middle school in China. [Xinhua]