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Opinion / Li Xing

Free children from stigmas associated with diseases

By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-02 07:27

Over the past few days, I have followed on television the footsteps of
Lin Qiang into an isolated village in the mountains of Liangshan,
Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Lin was the first guest from afar to visit the village, built as a local
leper colony more than 40 years ago. On his first trip there in March
2005, he had to pass through a one-meter wide dirt track, huge rocks on
one side and a deep valley on the other.

Since then, Lin, head of the provincial language committee, has gone out
of his way to help the village of 177 residents. He secured funds to
build a village school, which opened six months after his first visit.

Today, about 31 children under the age of 18 are able to receive basic
education.

Largely out of his own pocket, he has had the hilly road widened and
brought in a generator, a television set, books and medicines. Last year,
he also bought 4,000 kg of rice to help the villagers during a severe
drought, despite the fact that each household was also allocated food and
other relief from the local government.

Since his first visit, the lives of the villagers have changed a great
deal. Parents say their children have become more outgoing. And the
villagers can keep in touch with the outside world via the television.

I admire what Lin has done. But I also wonder how many of these isolated
communities are still out there crying out for assistance.

Above all, how many people, especially the children, still have to live
with social discrimination associated with such diseases as leprosy and
AIDS.

As Lin discovered, the children of the village are all healthy. However,
because of the stigma of leprosy, no local or provincial education
official had provided education for the children.

Lin's school offers a new start for the children, albeit not a
centralized boarding schools, which has been promoted by the Ministry of
Education to guarantee children in remote and mountainous areas quality
education.

It is pleasing to note the stigma of leprosy today is gradually
disappearing. There are fewer cases and people are getting immediate
medical treatment. Many of the former leper colonies are now getting
smaller, and some have disappeared.

In the village under the care of Lin, a young woman has now moved to
another county - the first to leave and join mainstream society. Lin
hopes others will follow suit.

Social discrimination, however, I must admit, especially that associated
with new diseases, such as AIDS, still exists.

China Daily once published a story about a small school attended by just
one pupil and a teacher. The boy had the school to himself because he was
HIV positive.

While many believed the boy was lucky to have a kind-hearted teacher, it
was obvious the boy was being deprived of friendship and other social
activities with his peers. How much that deprivation will harm the boy's
growth is anybody's guess.

While we praise what Lin has done, we must work harder at making
officials as well as the public aware that it is their duty to free
people and children from the stigmas of AIDS and leprosy, and enable them
to lead healthy and fruitful lives.

E-mail: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/02/2007 page10)

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