Tian Huiping, Portrait of a Fighter

The world of Tian Huiping, a young professor from Chongqing in central China, turned upside down when she learned that her four-year-old son Taotao was autistic. After the diagnosis, doctors recommended that Tian leave her boy in an institution, have a second child and forget about her first-born. This was hardly the advice that a heartbroken mother wanted to hear.

Following the advice of a friend, Tian traveled to Beijing in 1993 with the hopes of receiving help from medical professionals in the country's capital. The mother and son duo visited numerous hospitals and consulted a bunch of doctors, all in vain.

During one visit to a medical establishment, Tian happened to set her eyes on a brochure describing a new American method for treating autism, which focuses on giving greater autonomy to children. This brief information convinced Tian Huiping that she would be the best person to help and care for her son. At that moment, the resilient mother decided to begin a battle for the sake of her son, and for the sake of thousands of other children like him.

"Everything I know, I have learned by myself and I want to share this information with other parents of autistic children," says Tian. This desire to share her knowledge gave birth to the idea of establishing a school that specializes in the education and treatment of autistic children.

A local businessman happened to hear of the idea for the school and wanted to support the project. As a first step, Tian hired two teachers to teach six autistic children. Things did not work out as planned though, because the financial gains of running a school were not significant enough to please the business-oriented sponsor, and so the deal fell through. Despite the setback, the parents of the children urged Tian not to give up on the project, so classes were continued with the help of just one teacher in a small room in the center of Beijing. But the funds were just not enough to keep the big wheels turning.

Xingxingyu, China's first school for autistic children

Just when the situation could not get any worse, relief came in the form of monetary aid from abroad. In 1997, Tian opened a new school in the suburbs of Beijing, which she still runs today. The name of the school is Xingxingyu, which means "stars and rain." That same year Tian traveled to the United States to study other methods of teaching autistic children and returned home with a suitcase full of literature and videos to help the school's teachers in their important job.
The name of Tian's school Xingxingyu means stars and rain (Image: Radio86)
As soon as Tian opened the new school, parents of autistic children from all over China contacted her asking for information on the disorder. Since that moment, Tian's special education program for autistic children has kept on growing and expanding, with more than 3,000 children and parents to date having benefited from the education offered at Xingxingyu. The school operates on a four-semester basis, each of which lasts eleven weeks. A maximum of 27 students can attend the courses at a time.

The objective of the school is not only to help children make progress in their studies, but also to influence the way the parents of these special children perceive their offspring. "Our aim is to teach the parents that certain routines and an optimistic attitude can bring about great improvements in their child's everyday life", Tian explains. "The most important thing is to help in the integration of the child into the society. Being the parent of a handicapped child in China is in itself an endless battle," she continues.

The drive to do more

Xingxingyu has served as an example for other privately funded organizations operating in China. The school has made a significant contribution to the education of handicapped children in the country by providing text material that has been translated into Chinese to other schools and by offering teaching and support services. Recently the teaching staff of Xingxingyu toured in several regions lecturing about their experiences and offering advice. Tian Huiping has submitted a proposal to the European Commission concerning a project for building a cooperation network between Xingxingyu and other similar organizations in Europe.

In addition to running the school, Tian Huiping has other projects in mind as well. She would like to establish a similar school for autistic adults. Unfortunately the funds for realizing this dream are currently lacking. Xingxingyu does not receive any direct funding from the government, so it has to rely on tuition fees, subventions from governmental organizations and on private donations.

"In China, mentally or physically handicapped people are perceived in the same way as they were five thousand years ago," Tian sighs. "Our mission is to activate parents and encourage them to take to the streets with their children and raise awareness of people with mental disabilities."

All in all Tian Huiping remains optimistic about the situation. "China as a country is developing rapidly - and so will the situation of its handicapped people."