(Ecns.cn)--Chang Ping-yi is a Taiwanese woman who has devoted herself to promoting education in Dayingpan Village in Sichuan Province for over a decade. Also known as the "leper village," Dayingpan has been isolated from the outside world by the local government since 1959 to control the spread of leprosy.
Chang, once a senior journalist, decided to join the village in 2000, giving up her high-paying job at China Tima, a Taiwan-based newspaper, and an easy life in an elegant four-story mountainside villa.
Describing the village as a dark corner of the country that was deliberately forgotten, Chang said she was deeply impressed by the patients there, who were forced to crawl by dragging their deformed arms and legs, leaving roads marked with bloodstains.
Their children were no longer lepers, so many of them had nothing to do but idle in the streets all day long. This inspired Chang, herself a mother of two, to build a new school there. At the time, the only school was a shabby two-room house with no windows built on a mountain. Its door plate, the only valuable asset, had been stolen long ago.
Chang recalled that the classrooms were densely crowded with about 70 students. Some had to stand during lectures due to a lack of seats.
Bearing in mind that "if this poor school collapsed, the kids who grew up in the shadow of leprosy might lose their only hope of integrating into the outside world," Chang promised the local teachers that she would raise funds to build a new school for them.
As expected, six new classrooms and two dormitories were first completed in 2002 with 300,000 yuan ($47,336) raised in Taiwan. Chang supervised the construction, commuting on a bumpy road between Dayingpan and her hotel in the county every day.
A year later, Chang launched the Wings of Hope Charity Group. She also tried to make more money by writing articles, delivering speeches and lobbying potential donors.
In 2005, she received NT$1.7 million ($56,000) from the Keep Walking Fund and built the first teaching building in Dayingpan. Moreover, in 2010, Chang and a Taiwanese expert spent 500,000 yuan ($78,894) to build an underground tank for the school to store water. The stored water could support the school for three days if the supply was suspended.
The once collapsing school has now been renovated with clean classrooms and dining halls, and the first ever public toilet in the village.
By now, about 330 kids are studying at the school and more than 100 students have graduated. The number of teachers has also increased to 17.
In order to help the children find jobs, Chang also "forces" her brother in Tsingtao to provide vocational and technical training to the young people who want to work, according to China Daily.
Chang has invited teachers from Taiwan to teach literature and art, and created a course on movies and documentaries. "I want to tell the children that the world is wonderful. They should be happy and healthy," she said.
Chang is familiar with all the children and their families in the village, and likes to be close to them despite the risk that she may be bitten by fleas. She has taught the children how to maintain personal hygiene, including how to wash their hands, brush their teeth and take showers.
Many Taiwanese do not understand why she would travel to a "leper village" and live there. But Chang feels that she is on a mission. "I am a mother. When seeing the angelic faces of the kids, I just cannot turn away," she said, adding proudly that "it is in Dayingpan that I grew into a capable person."
Chang, who had never cooked before, can now make lunch for more than 100 children.
