Wu Yaohuan: Passing on strengthen to others

Wu Yaohuan is helping persons with disabilities to find a job and coordinating labor relations

Every day at employment registration window of Fujian employment service center for persons with disabilities, Wu Yaohuan is busy recording employment information on the computer with his left hand, answering questions posted online or told through phone calls and contacting local enterprises to ask for more employment opportunities.

He is passionate about his job because being a little help and bringing hope to disabled friends makes him happy. During 26-30 August 2013, Wu attended the Forum of Integrated Education and Employment for University Students with Disabilities (hereafter as the Forum) and Wuhan Training Camp for Youth Leaders with Disabilities in Wuhan, which is held by ILO and other partners. He said that the leadership training gave him lots of capacity on future advocacy for persons with disabilities like him.

Wu Yaohuan experienced from Cerebral Palsy and when he was 15 years old his neck began to shake voluntarily and his right hand became out of control. Physical conditions brought a lot of inconvenience to his study and work. But it never stops him from helping other people with disabilities, not only at work but also in his spare time. Ms Lin from Fujian Province Tongren Volunteers Helping the Disabled Service Center said that Yaohuan participated in every volunteering activity, even those held during Spring Festival.

Despite volunteering activities, what concerns Wu Yaohuan most is employment for persons with disabilities. In 2005, Yaohuan has set up a QQ group and opened a blog for persons with disabilities to exchange recruitment information and job-seeking experiences. He is undoubtedly an expert on employment that able to provide guidance and advice to disabled friends. He pointed out that it is most difficult for persons with disabilities in rural areas and persons with intellectual disabilities to find a job due to lack of opportunities, attention and practical job matching system. He also mentioned that although favorable national policies, like quota system, has created more opportunities for disabled persons, employers seem to be more of being forced to recruit than providing reasonable recommendation and truly accepting disabled employees.

Wu Yaohuan has recommended more than one thousand persons with disabilities to different enterprises. And he did more than that. After each recommendation, he would keep in touch with them to see whether they are able to adjust to new environment. Yaohuan said that persons with disabilities are longing to communicate with others, and he himself as one of them knows what they have been through and thus understands better their pains and happiness.

Wu Yaohuan is in fact implementing "supported employment" by himself and many persons with disabilities become his friends after getting job recommendation. They tell Yaohuan the troubles they met at work or in family life and ask for his advice. Wu Yici is one of them. He is an accounting major college graduate but had trouble obtaining employment due to his disabilities. Wu Yaohuan firstly helped him find a job in a carton factory to do some manual work. And Yaohuan told him that this job could not realize his potential and he would keep an eye for better opportunities. Not for long, he told Yici about a job fair for college graduates with disabilities and through which Yici found his present job as an accountant in a listed welfare enterprises.

"Teach one how to fish is better than feeding him/her once with fishes" is another principle of Wu Yaohuan. He believes that persons with disabilities should never live on charity but to make their own livings. Yaohuan himself is actually a very good example. Learning mainly by himself, he gained bachelor degree and more than ten qualification certificates of professional skills, and now a postgraduate student as well. When he was interviewed for his present job, the recruiter found that his computer and other skills were as good as or even better than non-disabled interviewees. Yaohuan always encourage other disabled job-seekers to improve their professional skills and make career plans.

Xie Chengzhong is a happily-married owner of a cross-stitch shop in Dehua. Back in 2006, he was a college student who wanted to quit school due to heavy economic burden and his disability that prevented him from standing upright. He found contact information of Wu Yaohuan online and phoned him to tell his frustrations. Yaohuan was really worried and went to his college the next day. Yaohuan thought that only when Xie was able to walk upright could his life be changed. So he asked a local service institution for persons with disabilities to help build specially-designed crutches for Xie Chengzhong and encouraged him to do walking exercise. Xie at last managed to walk upright.

Wu Yici also knew Xie through a gathering of persons with disabilities in Fuzhou found that Xie has completely changed after that. He now smiles a lot. Changes happen not only in the way of walking but also his mental conditions, because walking upright enables him to take participate in social life and thus built up his confidence.

Wu Yaohuan has helped a lot of people who then learned from him and began to help more. This spirit of helping others regardless of how small the help could be is thus passed down from one to another and inspires more and more persons with or without disabilities. Ms Lin mentioned before was firstly introduced by Wu Yaohuan to volunteering activities and now becomes a director of a volunteering organization, the motto of which embodies Yaohuan's spirit of helping that to help others is a way of helping oneself. Yici also mentioned that Yaohuan's kindness left a deep impression on him and he is now trying to become a person like Yaohuan who always lend a hand to others.

Wu Yaohuan studied in medical school in the college and he dreamed of becoming a doctor to help curing other people. But none of hospitals and clinics was willing to recruit him. He said with a smile that patients might become more painful after seeing their doctor suffering like this. But in fact, he is now a doctor in a different and more meaningful sense that he supported the life of disabled people by helping them find opportunities and removing their worries. More important, his good faith that passes from one to another becomes a tie that binds persons with disabilities together.