Rheal Desy, a 68-year-old Canadian, had planned to admit two more people this month to his “Home of Harmony and Joy” for handicapped people in the suburbs of the northeast Chinese city Jilin. But now, he realized it would not come true.
“I never thought things would turn out like this,” Desy sighed.
The home, a charity project initiated in 2004 to accommodate and train poor and handicapped people, is have a serious financial problem amid the global A/H1N1 influenza prevalence and economic downturn.
Benefactors had cut their donations since last December, “those who used to donate 1,000 yuan (147 U.S. dollars) monthly only gives 300 now,” he said.
Desy, along with his Chinese partner Zhang Lianghua, 32, started the home after receiving a piece of land in Fengman District, Jilin City, Jilin Province, from a local rich man.
The home, nestling against a beautiful hill, will house about 140 handicapped people upon completion, but it now only has nine such people.
Construction went smoothly until the end of 2008 when the global financial was worsening, Zhang told Xinhua.
“We still need one million yuan to finish the work,” said Desy, pointing to the empty square in front of the yellow building with a blue roof. Many rooms in the building are not fitted out, and the 3,000-square-meter yard even did not have something that can be called a door.
Desy and Zhang have spent 10 million yuan on the home so far. The money comes from the donations of friends, mostly ordinary people, and a few rich men in Canada and Hong Kong.
Desy has a doctorate in psychology and had worked in the Philippines, Indonesia and Hong Kong before he came to the Chinese mainland in 1994.
The A/H1N1 flu, which broke out in Mexico last month and has spread to 46 other countries and region with 12,954 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, put the home in an even more difficult position.
The 40 pigs that took the home almost eight months to raise were ready for sale, but they no longer mean profit as the flu, more commonly known as “swine flu”, had triggered a public scare over pork consumption leading to a pork price plunge.
The pigs’ price fell from 12 yuan to about 8 yuan per kilogram and the estimated profit of 20,000 yuan was not realized. Desy and Zhang believed the other 50 pigs yet to reach market weight would not bring in a fortune either.
“I wanted the home to be financially independent within two or three years, but it looked as though this would not be possible in even four to five years,” Desy said.
His dream of opening branches elsewhere also seemed farther off now than before.
He borrowed one million Canadian dollars (about 887,490 U.S. dollars) from his friend for the home. Now, he has only paid off half of that.
Nine people who are mentally or physically challenged and have no relatives to count on now stay at the home for free.
Desy wants the home to operate with the idea that “every person, no matter how handicapped they are, can do a lot of things by themselves.” So, each handicapped person is “accompanied” by a home employee who is paid 700 yuan per month.
Desy preferred the word “accompany” because the employees teach the handicapped people how to do housework or they just work together, instead of “doing something for them” which is the common practice at Chinese senior citizens’ homes.
“It’s more like a family,” Desy said.
Cai Shuzhen, 65, mentally handicapped, is the first member of this special family. She massaged the shoulders of an employee named He Yong after they clean the dinning table together, in her own way to express gratitude.
“When Cai came here early last year, she did not talk and was afraid of people. She did not know how to do housework,” said He.
She is now friendly to visitors to the home. “She is the first one of us to pull a chair over to a guest,” He added.
In order to keep the home running, Desy and Zhang are working on two mills to make bean curd and grind peanuts. These will add to the home’s property that includes three cattle and a vegetable garden.
A mineral water bottling factory had been also on agenda, but was rejected by Desy who believed the factory would cause pollution.