「I am a public welfare worker」

Hello, everyone, my name is Xie Wei, a public welfare worker. 13 years ago, at 22, I joined Chunhui Children. Since then, my friends and loved ones began to ask me all kinds of questions. And I have found that public welfare is so different from what people think.  

When I say I work with a foundation, for instance, they think I engage in finance and ask: “Which fund do you think is the most profitable these days?” “I work for public welfare.” “Well, do you receive payments? Are you a volunteer?”

There is a large number of ordinary public welfare workers like me who serve hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations around China. What we do is different from other jobs. At least I think I am a little bit “special”.   

「A philanthropic journey」

I am trainer of Chunhui Children

In the past 13 years I have travelled to almost all provinces of China, but my destinations have been nowhere but child welfare institutions/centers.

My responsibility is to share our childcare and education concepts and approaches with front-line Chunhui mamas so that they could grow into professional child caregivers and teachers.

All the Chunhui mamas in our partner welfare institutions are both our colleagues and trainees. We train and test them regularly. In the past 13 years, together with dozens of Chunhui trainers, I have impacted almost ten hundreds of Chunhui mamas who cared for thousands of orphaned children.

Many people ask me: “Xie, in all these years, were there any children that impressed you the most? Were there any Chunhui mamas who, you think, did an exceptional job?

Yes, there are, many. Today, let me share with you a story of a very special child.

In my first days working with the children, I was very emotionally fragile. It felt like hell to see what the children experience. Then I had my own child. When he turned 3, I met the first challenge of my life.  

「An abandoned toddler with a red thread tied to his wrist」

A glance of the child was enough to break one’s heart

In the late summer of 2014, I visited a very small child welfare institution in southern China. One morning, I heard broken cries of a child so asked a caregiver: “do you hear cries?” “They seem to come from the opposite room. We have a newcomer today,” the teacher said, “This morning, we found a box at the institution’s gate. In the box, a boy was crying nonstop. His wrist was tied with a red thread. Beside him there were disposable diapers, some milk powder and 500 RMB.”

I rushed to the opposite room and found a neatly dressed boy sitting in his crib. He turned to look at me, eyes welling up with tears. He seemed to have the same age with my own child so at that moment I had the illusion that the poor little thing was my own boy. How frightened and helpless he must be. What had he gone through that night. Tears streamed down my face. I walked over to him, squatted down and asked him softly: “Babe, what’s your trouble?” I touched his hands and he didn’t move. Then I found he was hemiplegic and unable to move. I straightened him up, put a cushion behind him for support and then tried to amuse him with a toy. However hard I tried, he kept crying and didn’t respond. I wrapped my arms around him and felt his back while humming to him.

Although the boy suffered from Semiplegia, he was clear-headed. From his few broken words, we learned that he thought if he behaved and sat quietly in that box, his parents would come back for him. I had no idea why his parents dumped him like they did old toys or clothes. It hurt the boy so much that the pain may last his whole lifetime. Event today, that fear and despair in his eyes still gnaw me from time to time.

That day, I was so down and upset that I felt I was going to explode. “Xie, you need take some rest and relax,” said my colleagues. They were right. I met so many orphaned children with all kinds of special needs these years. What they had been through almost broke my heart. I need learn to adapt and pull myself together.

I began to question my job as it was a torture to see the children suffer.

I was grateful that my teammates pulled me back. Pain boosts action. Only when you truly experience pain, will you realize the importance of taking quick actions and putting your every effort into work.

I call that abandoned boy “Lele”，hoping that he could always stay happy and healthy. He has been enrolled in Chunhui rehabilitation program and started receiving treatment for his hemiplegia. I believe he will have a chance to thrive under our nurturing care. I’ve forgiven his parents as well because I know there is a reason for everything, and they must have been through a lot themselves. I would rather focus my efforts on helping the child rather than questioning his parents’ decisions.  

「Learn, grow and transform」

Orphaned children have taught me a lot

I’ve learned so much from my job and the children. The dozens of Chunhui trainers have one personality trait in common: optimistic and contended.

After witnessing a great many children walk out of the darkness into the light, we now understand that we need reach every Chunhui mama of every institution with kindness so that they could take care of each child with patience and love. Despite all the challenges confronting us, we believe that so long as we do everything we can to help the children, they will grow and blossom one day.