Beijing -- Fifteen-year-old Nie Yongsong has exceeded the expectations
of himself and his community with his admission into a vocational school in
central China.
He is among the first of a generation of Chinese children orphaned by AIDS,
who have overcome public prejudice and an absence of hope, to come of age and
learn to stand on their own feet.
"I never expected that I would have the opportunity to come to a big city to
study," says Nie, who began his new campus life on Monday in the Tourism School
of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, 200 kilometers from Shangcai County.
Nie's parents died from AIDS three years ago in Nandawu Village, in Shangcai,
a county with a high incidence of AIDS since the mass contamination of blood
donors and recipients in the years before 1995 in Henan Province.
Nie's village has reported 415 HIV/AIDS cases, including 45 deaths, out of a
population of 2,600. He is one of 728 children orphaned, but not infected, by
the disease in Shangcai, which had reported 6,925 sufferers by July.
In September 2003, after their parents died, Nie and his sister Nie Juan
moved to the "Sunlight Home", a government-funded charitable institution that
looks after healthy AIDS orphans. The county has five such homes and a house
funded by public donations housing a total 186 orphans.
"Without the care and support of the home staff, I would still be an ignorant
rural boy," says Nie, who graduated after three years at middle school this
summer.
The Sunlight Home will provide living expenses and the tourism school has
exempted Nie from the three-year tuition fees, says Nie, who chose hotel
management as his major.
With an estimated 650,000 HIV/AIDS cases, China has 76,000 AIDS orphans,
whose numbers could pass 150,000 by 2010, according to the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNCF).
Like Nie, other AIDS orphans aged 15 to 18, who either have finished their
nine-year compulsory education or dropped out of school, are having to learn
skills in order to make a living.
A pilot vocational training project started in July in Henan, southwest
China's Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, aiming to help AIDS orphans find jobs by
acquiring skills.
Xu Wenqing, the UNCF national project officer on HIV-AIDS in Beijing, told
Xinhuas the UNCF is cooperating with China's Civil Affairs Ministry in the
project, which includes skills such as sewing, car mechanics, catering and
hairdressing.
Training lasts around two months, with an average cost of 3,000 yuan (375
U.S. dollars) per student, said Xu. The training will be mainly funded by the
UNCF and local governments, with the UNCF investing 200,000 yuan (25,000 U.S.
dollars) this year.
Beneficiaries include both AIDS orphans and children whose parents are AIDS
patients, said Xu.
A policy on training for both groups of children is expected to be drafted on
the basis of the pilot project by the Civil Affairs Ministry at the end of next
year, to assist in finding employment, Xu said.
China will improve its relief and assistance system for orphans, and provide
more aid for their education, medical costs and employment, said Li Liguo, vice
minister of Civil Affairs.
In Shangcai, the first group of 11 AIDS orphans aged 18 or above have
completed a three months of free training in animal husbandry or computers this
year, said Li Haizhou, chief of the county committee of the Communist Party of
China.
Under the county's policy, living subsidies from the local government end
when the orphans turn to be 18 years old.
The county government still tries to raise money to pay for tuition fees and
living expenses of any orphan enrolled in a college, said Li.
The county's labor and social security department will also organize more
training programs for AID orphans, who have finished their compulsory education
and left school, Li added.
Wu Guosheng, whose parents died when he was 13, another former resident of
the Sunlight Home, has found a job as an English teacher in a primary school
after graduating from a local teachers training college in 2005.
Wu, 18, was exempted from tuition fees for his three years of study.
"Now I can stand on my own two feet," said Wu.
