Society

AIDS orphans struggle in poverty-battered county

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-08-30 10:17

BEIJING - Getting up at 6 am, Zhihuo, a 14-year-old girl from the Chinese Yi ethnic minority, started her first day as a fifth grader by feeding the only pig in her home, where she lives with her 76-year-old grandmother.

Brought up hand-to-mouth by her grandmother, the girl lost her parents several months after her birth in Zhaojue, a state-level poverty-stricken county in Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Liangshan in Southwestern Sichuan province.

Related readings:  Fighting HIV/AIDS prejudice  Chinese researcher seeks to kill HIV  China details plan to fight co-infection of HIV and TB  Red ribbon leads AIDS orphans to summer camp

In Zhihuo's class are 41 Yi students who are all believed to have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

Most students in the class have been raised by their grandparents, while several lucky ones could also count on their uncles and aunts, said Mouse Wusha, who began tutoring the children right after he graduated from college in August 2006.

The class, established by the prefecture's women and children development center at Sikai Central School of Zhaojue in 2006, started accepting funding from the China Red Ribbon Foundation, a national non-government organization dedicated to the prevention and control of AIDS, in September 2009.

AIDS-SHADOWED COUNTY

As China's largest Yi community, Liangshan was also one of the areas worst plagued by AIDS in China.

Since the first HIV-positive case was found among drug users sent back from Yunnan province in 1995, Liangshan had reported 18,003 cases of AIDS by the end of 2009, accounting for 60 percent of Sichuan's total, with 5,530 new cases last year alone, said Yang Zhaobo, deputy head of the prefectural government.

"Many people in Liangshan who contracted AIDS are intravenous drug users. Due to poor medical conditions, they wouldn't spontaneously take tests or seek medications, and finally died of various complications of the disease," said Ye Dawei, vice-secretary of the foundation.

The incurable disease left a large number of children orphaned in Liangshan, though no authoritative figures have been released.

Workers with the foundation once visited some families of AIDS-orphaned children in Zhaojue, Ye said. "They are living a really hard life. In an extremely poor family, I saw that those jars used to contain rice and flour were empty. They ate meat about once a month."

Malnutrition was threatening the physical conditions of the students, who were significantly shorter than other children their age.

"The AIDS orphans that our sponsorship couldn't reach were in worse health conditions," Ye added.

The foundation provided every student in the class with 150 yuan ($22) per month, so food and uniforms would no longer be barriers to schooling.

But the subsidy was apparently insufficient to support the whole family or enable them to develop outside interests.

"I still remember one night last year when Zhihuo and her grandmother had run out of food. The girl knelt in a field at 10 pm to dig for potatoes, took them back home alone and cooked them for her grandmother," ?Wusha recalled.

Also, most students in the class had to do household and farm chores in their leisure time to help the family make ends meet. "We simply can't afford to play," said 12-year-old Muniu.

Considering that the county' s government had a tight budget, it couldn't help much, Ye said.

HIDDEN SCARS

Any conversations concerning their parents are "taboos" for the children, even between themselves, Wusha said.

They loved being together due to their similar backgrounds, but were unwilling to share their stories, he said. "Also, they never mentioned that to me."

Some of them became silent when confronted with a question like, "When did you begin living with your grandparents?", while others simply said "I can't remember".

While struggling to combat poverty, the children also have to face discrimination from others, even though they test HIV-negative.

Zhang Lin, a worker with the foundation, said the children were unfairly treated when they attended a summer camp held in Beijing and Shanghai in mid-August this year.

"The travel agencies responsible for our trip insisted on reviewing the medical test results of the children, which is unacceptable from our angle," said Zhang, who accompanied the children to the Summer Palace, Tsinghua University, the Great Wall and the Shanghai Expo.

"The demand indicates the misunderstandings and discrimination some hold to AIDS-orphaned children. Knowledge about AIDS should be more publicized to prevent innocent children from having a stigma attached to them any longer," he said.

The children, deprived of parental love, are also vulnerable to insults at school.

"Sometimes, students from other classes would laugh at them for not having parents. Whenever it happened, they would suddenly become depressed, even tearful," said Wusha.

"I often shouted at the mischievous students, but it was already too late," he lamented.

WORRISOME FUTURES

"We want to help more students get into school and protect them from juvenile crime, drugs and other social problems," Ye said.

China implemented nine-year compulsory education, providing all children aged 6 and beyond with free access to primary and junior middle schools, but many AIDS orphans in impoverished families in Zhaojue still stay at home or have found a job outside their hometown.

Wusha never stopped worrying that he might lose some students before they graduated from the primary school.

His students were generally older than others in the same grade and some just couldn't wait to earn money, he said. "For instance, an 18-year-old boy in my class dropped out before he finished the third grade and left Zhaojue."

Wusha said he was more concerned over the future of the boys. "After aged caregivers die, the girls still have a chance to have a good marriage and join in a normal family. But what will become of the boys? Are they strong enough to head a family then?"

However, Wusha said he was happy to see the changes that came over the students after they returned from the summer camp. "It was the first time that they've ever been to cities, and that experience brought joy and inspiration to their lives," he said.

The students were especially in high spirits when visiting Tsinghua University, one of the most prestigious universities in China.

"I really want to get into a good university so I can make good money after graduation and repay the kindness of my uncle and aunt as soon as possible," said 14-year-old Niuri.

Zhihuo, the courageous girl, has made up her mind to have a career outside her poor hometown, instead of simply pinning hopes of her future on a ?"good marriage".