A girl plays with building blocks at the Home of Children's Companions in Xishanping village in Jinhua town in the city of Shehong, Sichuan province, while her grandmother looks on. (LIU LANYING / FOR CHINA DAILY)

Three teenage girls were reading science fiction quietly. One raised her head and asked: "Mom, what does this word mean?"

Ma Xuemei, a 28-year-old woman, approached the girl from one corner of the room, paraphrasing the new word while caressing her hair.

In the spacious playground right behind the room, two girls aged about 10 were playing on the swings. Ma warned them not to swing too fast.

These recent scenarios took place in the Home of Children's Companions in Xishanping village in Jinhua town in the city of Shehong, Sichuan province.

With a population of nearly 1 million, Shehong is a less-developed city. Each year, between 360,000 and 380,000 people serve as migrant workers outside the city, leaving their children behind, according to Liu Lingshi, an official with the Shehong Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League.

To show concern for these rural youngsters, the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League started the Children's Companions Plan in 2016, building children's homes in 165 selected villages on a trial basis.

A woman aged from 19 to 55 is hired to be the caretaker of each Home of Children's Companions, and they are referred to as the "mother" of each home.

Ma applied for the position at the Xishanping village home in 2017.

Xishanping has a population of 4,026, of which 1,675 of them work outside the village. Ma, who oversees 54 children whose parents are migrant workers outside, understands the youngsters because of her own personal experience.

"I was left behind for five years when my parents went to work in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. When my infant daughter was only several months old, I left her behind to work in Huizhou, Guangdong, for two-and-a-half years," she says.

Ma Xuemei, a caretaker "mother" at the children's home, has fun with a girl playing on a swing. (LIU LANYING / FOR CHINA DAILY)

On weekends and during winter and summer vacations, when children are out of school and come to the Home of Children's Companions, Ma will play games with them, teach them to sing, coach them while they do their homework, and teach them how to live safely, as well as instilling in them the basic principles of common sense and life in general.

Wang Lingke, 10, is a fourth grader in a primary school. Her parents have worked at a plant making electronic products in Shenzhen since she was 6 months old.

"Once they returned home after an absence of several years and I didn't recognize them," she explains. "I asked, 'Who are you?'"

Living with her grandma in Xishanping, Wang likes reading books and enjoys playing games at the Home of Children's Companions on weekends and during her vacations.

"I can make friends here and Mother Ma is caring, tender and considerate," she says.

Her grandma Cao Shiping is 65 and has to attend to crops in the fields and the animals at home.

"When I am too busy, I will send my granddaughter to the home. She is safe there and can learn a lot from Mother Ma. Many grandparents like me in the village did not receive a good education and do not know how to educate the young," Cao says.

To Ma, the care offered by the "mother" at the home cannot replace the love of the parents of the "left-behind" children.

Some of the children are used to living with their grandparents and rarely communicate with their faraway parents. Ma encourages them to call their parents from time to time.

She often communicates with the children's parents through WeChat to keep them abreast of offspring's physical and mental health.

Thanks to such communication, the parents of three of the children returned home to the village to be with them.

Xiao Yuan, one of the three children, is introverted and does not like to communicate with others. Ma repeatedly told her parents that when a girl enters adolescence, she needs her family members close.

"Finally, at the end of 2017, her mother returned and settled down in the village with her," Ma says.

Contact the writers at huangzhiling@chinadaily.com.cn