Focus on kids
Disabled children gain voice through images
‘My dream is to be a soldier guarding the country,” said 13-year-old Yongzhi proudly. Sadly, his dream may never come true because a hereditary limb condition means he is unlikely to grow as tall as his peers.
Yongzhi is one of 18 disabled children at Anding Primary School in Jingdong Yi autonomous county, Yunnan province in Southwest China. He is popular and known for his frequent laughter, but secretly he is scared of being mocked by his ablebodied classmates.
However, since he has joined a photography class, he has gradually become more confident.
A special class
One day at the end of 2016, Yongzhi’s father was told that his son had been selected to join a photography class. He was astonished, as Yongzhi had never even seen a smartphone, still less a camera.
Photography can be difficult for children with physical or mental disabilities. More often than not, they need special instruction and extra tutoring after school.
Liu Yuyang, a freelance photographer who was awarded the Magnum Foundation Human Rights Fellowship in 2014, does not view disability as something that needs fixing. He said all children are born equal, and they are entitled to look for the beauty in life, irrespective of whether they are disadvantaged or not.
Accordingly, he contacted Save the Children, a global NGO that focuses on child development and protection which has successfully piloted inclusive education programs in China for years, and offered to use his expertise to help disabled children.
After two months of preparation, Liu started his class, which included three disabled and three able-bodied children, a perfect model of inclusive education, where the youngsters can learn from each other.
Between January and September last year, the 25-year-old photographer offered the students several sessions, running from two to five days, teaching them about techniques such as photo composition and exposure.
Sometimes the group traveled to the countryside to practice taking photos. Liu also left cameras for his students to use after class to allow them to express their artistic talents freely.
“In addition to normal classes, I organized photo exhibitions and peer reviews to encourage their artistic exchanges,” he said.
As an experiment in inclusive education, the class was provided in the spirit of non-exclusion, nondiscrimination and acceptance of all.
“The inclusive photography class was not designed solely for disabled children, but shared with able-bodied kids. In the process, they learned how to participate and share. Sometimes the work could be done only by cooperating — usually one student came up with ideas and the other did the shooting,” Liu said.
Yongzhi surprised his teacher with his photographs of elderly women tending sheep, schoolgirls playing basketball and men walking donkeys. His work displayed a balance and harmony between motion and stillness.
Another student, 7-year-old Lu Youlin, took photos of his older brother on a path near their home. Before shooting, he put a flower between his brother’s lips “to make the scene more artistic — a tip from my teacher”.
An inclusive experiment
The photography classes were part of China’s five-year experiment to provide inclusive education.
“Whether in cities or the countryside, the best way for disabled children to be integrated into mainstream society is for them to receive education in mainstream schools,” said Wang Xingxing, inclusive education project manager at Save the Children.
Wang was born with cerebral palsy. In the 1980s, when a lack of physical access and specialist facilities meant most disabled children were denied the chance to study at regular schools, she was lucky to sit in the same classes as her able-bodied peers.
“Had I not shared the experience of studying and living with nondisabled children, I wouldn’t have become accommodated to mainstream society so quickly,” she said.
Special schools are still prevalent, given their specific care and skill training tailored for disabled children, especially those with severe conditions.
However, a report by Save the Children noted that students in such schools easily become stuck in a restricted environment and find it hard to be accepted by society when they graduate.
“Disabled people can hardly be understood properly as a result of a lack of communication with ablebodied people. They may be discriminated against in job interviews and questioned about their ability to undertake ordinary work,” said Xie Renci, a disability rights activist, who lost her right leg in a car accident when she was 4 years old.
Xie was impressed by the photos taken by Liu’s students. “They are all equally good. The children are not judged by their IQs or physical capabilities,” she said.
Reform
China is speeding up reform of the special education system. In 2015, the Ministry of Education designated 37 regions and districts as experimental areas for national special education reform, supporting them with policies, funding and special projects.
In May, the government released revised regulations on the education of people with disabilities, making general education the main method, with special education as a complementary activity. This means more disabled children will attend regular schools and special education teachers will provide assistance to them.
Yet challenges still remain. Teachers at regular schools often express concerns about the extra responsibility of taking on disabled children.
“Any little accident that hurts these children will result in serious complaints and warnings from their parents. You know, it is quite normal for children to run around, but what if these disabled children get hurt?” said one teacher, who preferred not to give his name.
Between 2009 and 2015, Save the Children managed to pilot inclusive education projects at primary schools in the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, and in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The programs saw special schools transformed into resource centers, providing training for teachers and parents.
Now, the NGO is working to encourage more teachers from special schools to reach out to disabled children in regular schools and cooperate with the teachers in those establishments.
Wang said teachers should empower students by providing respect and support, and recalled the support she had at school one winter day.
“The snow was nearly knee-high. My PE teacher worried about me so much that he proposed carrying me home on his back. But my class director offered to walk me home. So we stumbled all the way back home hand-in-hand, taking much longer than usual.”
To eliminate discrimination and raise public awareness, Wang called on both teachers and socially aware experts such as Liu to run mixed classes in schools.
“I believe that in the near future the sight of disabled and nondisabled children sitting in the same classroom will become as normal and simple as when girls and boys began to attend the same schools a century ago,” she said.
Exhibition
When the inclusive photography classes ended, Liu organized a photo exhibition. During the show, Yongzhi excitedly shared the stories behind his photos with his classmates. Hearing their applause, Yongzhi laughed, as he always does.
His father used to be pessimistic about his son’s prospects, but looking at the exhibition and seeing his son’s pride in the photographs he had taken, he became more upbeat.
After the exhibition, Liu asked the students about their dreams for the future and received a number of different responses.
“I want to be a teacher,” one child said.
“I want to be an armored warrior,” another said.
Liu was inspired by their ambition. “Whether disabled or not, their dreams are pure and lovely. Every dream needs to be respected. So I want to organize a photo exhibition tour for them in the hope of one day seeing their pictures and stories travel around the globe,” he said.
They are all equally good. The children are not judged by their IQs or physical abilities.” Xie Renci, a disability rights activist, talking about photographs taken by the mixed class