Background

In the 1990s, a lot of impoverished peasants in China, in their desperation to put food on the table for their family, sold blood to make some extra money. Due to the unsanitary blood collection practice at the time, many such peasants unwittingly contracted HIV. As high as 60% of the adult population was estimated to be infected with HIV in some villages. Many subsequently died of AIDS, leaving young orphans with a bleak future. Others are so sick they can no longer take care of the young, nor work to earn money to support their education, causing many children previously at school to drop out. The United Nations Children’s Fund once estimated that there were more than 500,000 AIDS-impacted children in China​​. Worse still, the largely uneducated peasant population fear that they will be contaminated if they come into contact with these children, and so the AIDS-impacted children have essentially become outcasts in their own communities, having to grow up isolated, unable to lead a normal life. They often face tremendous discrimination and are bullied by their peers. Most of these children are not HIV-infected, as their parents contracted the disease after they were born. What they sorely need is the opportunity to pursue an education so that they can stand on their own feet when they grow up. They also need psychosocial therapy to overcome the childhood trauma of losing their loved ones and their feeling of growing up unwanted and unloved by the world.