By Calum MacLeod and Sunny Yang, USA TODAY
XIAOGAN, China — The nighttime cry sounded like a stray cat. The cold morning light revealed a stray baby instead, wrapped in a quilt beside a bag of diapers and a packet of milk powder.
"Don't blame us for our cruelty, it's because we can't afford to raise you," read an anonymous note.
The baby girl, perhaps 1 month old, had a severely disabled left foot.
Such a deformity in China is considered an enormous burden, and up until recently there were no privately run homes for the disabled in the entire country. One such home is where the child was left, established in January by Chen Fuqiao.
"I want to teach them how to help themselves, more or less, and give the better ones a chance to work," Chen says.
The hurdles are high for people such as Chen who are trying to help the disabled live more normal lives. The Communist Party in control of China does not like group efforts that are independent of the state, he says.
Not so in the West, where institutions have largely given way to group homes or apartments in neighborhood settings that allow people with mental and physical disabilities to be part of the community. Much of the housing is run by community-based organizations.
In China, all decisions regarding its disabled are made by the Communist Party, which prefers traditional institutional care. When individuals such as Chen try to do things differently, they run into a system that distrusts civic action.
Running into resistance
Chen has been refused official registration and funding even though he is providing for 27 children and young adults in his hometown of Xiaogan, in eastern China.
This month, Beijing further limited the amount of money an organization not controlled by the government can take from foreign donors.
More than 13 million of China's estimated 83 million physically handicapped people also have learning disabilities, says Yang Xiang, head of the juvenile research institute at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
Wealthier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai fund special education programs, but about 60% of those 13 million remain "stuck at home," in the poorer countryside with little access to help, Yang says.
Chen, whose 20-year-old son has suffered learning disabilities since birth, left his job at a fertilizer factory to set up a small supermarket in the 1990s. The joy Chen experienced training his son to run for the Special Olympics convinced him he could help others.
Since 2007, he has ridden his old motorbike around Xiaogan and nearby villages looking for families like his own while still managing his grocery.
The response was overwhelming. In a city of 5 million, Chen says he discovered at least 1,000 families struggling to raise children with disabilities. Municipal statistics from 2006 say that 28,000 of Xiaogan's 309,000 disabled people are mentally handicapped.
Most of the children spend all day at home, looked after by their mothers, Chen says.
The Chinese sense of duty to care for one's parents, popularized by Confucius, runs deep in Xiaogan city, named after a famous legend of filial piety. At Chen's center, that tradition is reversed.
"My aim is to let the parents of families like mine leave the world without worry," explains Chen, 46, a soft-spoken Buddhist. "There is a place they can trust, and make their children happier."
After just two months, Shi Biyu is already convinced.
"She never said 'good morning' before, but she did it all day after joining Mr. Chen's center," Shi says of daughter Zhou Mei, a baby-faced 36-year-old who was clutching a Mickey Mouse doll. "I can't die with my eyes closed if Meimei doesn't have a good place to go. Now I set my mind at rest."
Others must wait for Chen's help.
Every day the parents of Peng Jing, 6, strap him into a "standing shelf," a contraption copied from a hospital device, that they hope will improve his walking. Peng, who has cerebral palsy, cries every time he is strapped in.
"He hates using the equipment," says Lu, who softens the pain by giving Peng treats from KFC.
Beijing may be coming around, however.
At the annual session of parliament last month, Premier Wen Jiabao included for the first time in his government report additional assistance for services for the disabled. Zhang Haidi, head of the China Disabled Persons' Federation, said that China urgently needs more funds for disabled people in remote villages.
Still, "Compared to problems like house prices, corruption and health care, I fear the problem of the mentally disabled is now pretty much near the back," Yang says.
Gratitude for efforts
In Xiaogan, local government officials appreciate Chen's efforts.
"He helps our work, but the financial help we can give him is limited," says Xu Zemin, deputy head of the municipal disabled persons' federation.
Meng Weina, a pioneer in caring for China's disabled, says attitudes have improved from days when people with disabilities were called "cripples" or "idiots."
"The government realizes it can't do everything," Meng says.
Meng's outspokenness on the need to change the way the disabled are treated has cost her official support for her services organization, which are now in 11 cities, she says.
"It's a miracle we have kept going," says Meng, a Catholic inspired by Mother Theresa.
Chen Fuqiao may need a miracle.
All but one of the 17 nurses he took on earlier this year have left because of low salaries, he says. His wife complains he is neglecting the family grocery.
"I pray to Buddha every day," Chen says. "I ask him, 'Am I right or wrong to do this?' "
In the morning he is back at it. He has a sports meet to prepare for, he says, and a lot of hopes riding on his shoulders.
MacLeod reported from Beijing; Yang from Xiaogan.
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