China's disabled quake children piece together their lives

[Coventina]

Source: CNN

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- For 20 hours Gao Ying lay in the rubble of her school in China's Sichuan province last spring. The May 2008 earthquake that struck southwest China had leveled many buildings across the region.

Gao had survived -- unlike many of her classmates -- but injuries sustained to both her legs meant she would need amputations just below her knees.

"I was very scared," recounted the 14-year-old Gao. "After my legs were amputated, I began treatment. In the beginning it was very hard to get used to my new legs. It's still hard to wear them, though it does help me to cope with my life better now."

Gao faces a long road of recovery and rehabilitation, but the teenager has hope, and in large part because of a Hong Kong-based organization formed to help people disabled from the May 12, 2008 earthquake.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/10/standtall.sichuan/

[FailureToCommunicate]

1. Gao and the many others face a long road of recovery, BUT China is WAY ahead

of the U.S. in accepting and integrating anyone with a disability. Partly due perhaps to culture and sense of belonging to community, and maybe -because of having nothing like our OSHA- there are loads of people with missing limbs, etc. living and working along side everyone, China's common folks -if not their government- will certainly be part of the rehabilitation of the lives, and bodies, damaged by this calamity.

[friendly_iconoclast]

2. How do you know this?

[madaboutharry]

3. I was also wondering the same thing.

Where does this information come from?

[FailureToCommunicate]

4. Just impressions from living here,and in Europe,involved with people with disabilities

and my father's lifelong work here and abroad (including China, Korea, Vietnam) with people who have disabilities, like the children of thalidomide, work with Presidents Commission on Employment of the Handicapped, Easter Seals, Rehabilitation International, Healing Community, the ADA legislation, and Adaptive Environments, etc.
(My father was asked to be at the signing of the ADA in 1990 by Bush(41) White House in recognition of his life of championing the cause of civil rights for people with disabilities and pioneering that cause through many presidents and congresses starting with Truman after WW II. See his blessing at the signing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CDbluMCfRM )

And this issue of acceptance is one of the hardest ones faced after every war also, when there are lots of returning soldiers with disabling conditions. (See the old movie Best Years of Our Lives with Harold Russell)

I don't mean Gao and others won't face many problems with reintegration to their community, just saying it may be easier there than it is for many with disabilities here.

[friendly_iconoclast]

5. There's the paradox...

If you have more people with visible disabilities, there is less of a 'novelty' factor to deal with.

I hate to say it-but yes, some in the States still treat PWDs as untermenschen.

I'm glad to hear China is accepting. Some other cultures do not treat people with disabilities well at all.