Foreign Property News | Posted by Hnin Ei Khin
A Chinese man who used his savings to support a free shelter for 348 “orphans” over the past 17 years has moved many people online.
Huang Meisheng, 65, founded De Ren Garden, a house for orphans and children who do not receive proper care from their families, in 2008 in Fenyi County, Jiangxi province, eastern China.
Huang became a teacher at 20 and a secondary school headmaster 10 years later.
At the age of 40, he became the deputy director of Fenyi Education Bureau and headmaster of a local primary school.
(Huang Meisheng walks and chats with one of the children he has taken under his wing. Photo: Xinhua)
He said he was motivated to establish De Ren Garden after noticing that many of his students were in reality orphans, as their parents were not available to look after them, even if they were still alive.
“In one case, the father died and the mother remarried to somewhere far away. In another, the parents were disabled, and in a third, the parents were in prison,” Huang told West China Metropolis Daily.
De Ren Garden was founded in an old factory building after receiving a 200,000-yuan (US$28,000) subsidy from the government.
After that, Huang used his own savings, pensions and funds he raised from kind-hearted people to support its operation.
(Huang has devoted his life and work to the shelter after receiving a government subsidy. Photo: Xinhua)
The place provides children with a home, life skills education, and a playground.
On weekdays, the children go to a normal school, and Huang and other staff sometimes pick them up like parents would.
Children whose grandparents are still alive but are unable to look after them are also invited to visit the Garden. Huang asks the children to observe their wrinkles and wash their feet.
"Feeling, understanding, and learning how to love is an important lesson in the growth of our children," said Huang.
(As well as learning crucial life skills at the shelter, the children also attend normal school. Photo: Xinhua)
Over the past 17 years, De Ren Garden has raised 348 children. Of that number, 76 went to university.
The facility now shelters 57 children, mostly of primary school age.
It has three teachers other than Huang.
Some of the Garden's previous residents have come back as adult volunteers.
Yuan Junyu, one of the first batch of kids who grew up there, now works in another city but lives at the Garden for a few days every month, playing badminton and other sports with the children.
Huang said the seed of helping children was planted in him when his secondary teacher gave him two fermented tofus when he was too poor to afford proper meals.
Now, Huang requires the Garden to have leftover food at every meal because it means there is more than enough, and all the children are full.
He has even been spotted tucking into the leftover food several times.
(Among the many skills the children are taught at the shelter is farming. Photo: Xinhua)
Ref: Chinese man turns old factory into school and shelter for ‘orphans’; lives on leftover food
Photo Credit-Xinhua
