Our History

Chi Heng Foundation (CHF) was founded in 1998 and is a registered charity in Hong Kong (IR File No: 91/6187).

In 2017, CHF completed registration and established its representative office in Henan under the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Administration of Activities of Overseas Nongovernmental Organizations in the Mainland of China (Unified Social Credit Code：G1410000MCW1707731).

In 2020 November, service areas of CHF in mainland China were further expanded to cover all areas except Tibet Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. See registration details here.

The philosophy of “Chi Heng” is to put “wisdom into action” to help the underprivileged.

On a visit to China in the late 1990s, our founder, Mr. Chung To, then a successful investment banker on Wall Street, saw firsthand the population devastation in the impoverished villages in central China as a result of blood selling. The desperation of the dying parents tearfully begging Mr. To to save their children moved him tremendously. It motivated him to abandon his lucrative business career, to devote full time and energy towards helping the AIDS impacted orphans. In his race against time to save these orphans before it is too late, he made use of the non-profit status of Chi Heng Foundation to mobilize the resources of donors, sponsors, and volunteers to give as many orphans as possible a second chance in life. Our holistic approach aims to provide the children with an education along with psychosocial care, to help them overcome their childhood trauma of losing their most beloved and the social stigma they often face for being “from an AIDS family”. We want them to grow up unashamed of their parents’ HIV status,having regained their dignity, be able to eventually stand on their own feet and become independent and productive members of society, as well as having developed a sense of social responsibility to help others.

From initially sponsoring the education of 127 AIDS impacted children in central China in 2002, we have now grown to sponsoring around 8,000 children in many provinces, with approx. 16,000 already finished school and in the general workforce.  We now have offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. We also has set up local offices in Henan, Anhui, Yunnan, Guangxi and Shandong Provinces and are by far the largest, one of the longest continuously running and most comprehensive nongovernmental operations serving AIDS impacted children in China.

*student numbers updated with 2019-20 school year data. 

Our work is compelled by the philosophy behind the Story of the Starfish:

Join us to fight the war on AIDS and help the children

You can make a difference!