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Working for pay, feeling part of society
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A car wash on Kaixuan Road in Hangzhou is giving mentally handicapped people a sense of self-worth by giving them paying jobs.
Wearing red and blue uniforms, four people form a team at the Wanwan Car Wash. They hose off dirt from a car, wash it with sponges and dry it with cloths, and then vacuum the inside. The process may not be quite as fast as at other car washes, but customers don’t mind because they know they are contributing to a good cause.
Some intellectually impaired people serve as receptionists and cashiers at the car wash. During weekends, parents, volunteers and other part-time workers fill in to keep the car wash running.
Hangzhou resident Xu Qin, whose 28-year-old son has a severe mental disability, opened the car wash this month. She is also founder of a special care center for the mentally handicapped.
According to local federation for the disabled in Hangzhou, about 30,000 people in the city suffer some level of intellectual impairment. Xu’s work touches only a small proportion of them.
“I want these people to have ordinary lives,” she told Shanghai Daily. “I want them to have jobs during the week and free time for social relationships on the weekends. Just like other people.”
Xu, a successful businesswoman, founded her own construction materials business after she realized she would have to support her son for the rest of his life.
The car wash currently employs 10 people with mental disabilities.
One of them is Yang Jiajun, whom Xu calls a “model worker.” He can speak well and understands what is going on around him, but he has trouble counting.
When Shanghai Daily visited the car wash recently, he had just finished vacuuming the inside of a vehicle and discovered he had scooped up some coins. He dusted off the coins and returned the money to the car.
“Are you tired,” a Shanghai Daily journalist asked.
“Yes, tired.”
“Are you happy?”
“Yes. Happy.”
“What makes you happy?”
“Washing cars.”
Kang Kang, who functions as cashier, speaks and moves slowly but never makes a mistake, Xu said. When a customer pays him, he squints at the notes with impaired eyesight.
“You gave me 100, and it costs 25,” he tells a customer. “One hundred minus 25 is ... 75. Is it correct?”
When the customer agrees with the math, Kang takes change from drawer, checks the notes again and then hands over the money.
Gao Xiangchun, a car wash worker, said it took three months to train the employees how to wash a car properly.
“It is difficult to teach them,” Gao said, “but they are really passionate, industrious and hardworking.”
A parent of one of the employees said his mentally handicapped daughter proudly announces every morning that she is going to work.
The business is having trouble breaking even. Every day, about 30 cars are washed at a cost of between 20 yuan (US$3.06) and 25 yuan. However, the monthly rent for the premises is more than 200,000 yuan.
The car wash sits a floor below the Wanwan Care Center, which caters to the mentally handicapped. On this day, there are 22 people there. Meals and education are provided free. Xu, founder of the center, covers the cost.
Many mentally handicapped people have “graduated” from special education schools, but they end up at the center because they have nowhere else to go.
Xu knows first-hand the bitter dead-end. When her own son graduated from such a school, he was left with nothing to do but stay home, shut away from any social life. Without much human contact, much of what these people learn in special education schools eventually retrogresses.
“I know one girl who could speak and sing while in school, yet one month after she returned to her home in the countryside, she lost all language ability,” Xu said.
Her own son was testament to the frustrations. He told his mother he missed his classmates and teachers. Calling around to other parents, Xu discovered they were all experiencing the same hopelessness. So she decided to do something about it.
First, she rented a classroom at a local special education school, gathered together six mentally handicapped children and employed retired professionals as teachers.
Her school ran smoothly but she soon realized that the mentally handicapped need a life beyond the classroom. They need to feel part of the broader society.
To give them coping skills, she added practical courses on daily needs like shopping, banking and taking public transport.
The classes also include simple math, languages including a few English words, writing characters, and sign language.
Every student at the center can cheerfully say “Welcome to Wanwan” in English. And for the coming G20 summit in Hangzhou in September, they have learned the national flags of each participating country.
But the work element of Xu’s program has proven the most critical in giving the mentally handicapped a sense of self-respect and belonging.
Xu and her colleagues have arranged some form of work for every student. Some wash cars, others clean homes. Some deliver supermarket goods to apartments in the neighborhood.
“Work earns them respect, while overprotection weakens them,” said Tu Chen, one of their teachers. “We want them to be in contact with society — to be part of society.”
Xu’s center now operates a bookstore and supermarket near the car wash. None of the enterprises is profitable.
“I will cover the costs as long as I can,” Xu said.
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