From the AFP:
Zhang Shihe is not your typical activist. But the 57-year-old retired Chinese advertising executive has embraced the role since rescuing 14 disabled people from the streets of Beijing, thanks in large part to the power of his blog… The reaction in a country where more than 380 million people now surf the web was generous and immediate: donations poured in.
A year later, Zhang was able to find housing for them in Daxing, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) outside the city centre.
“The phenomenon of homelessness reflects a certain failure on the part of the government and is therefore a sensitive issue,” he says.
In China — a country of 1.3 billion people where the social safety net remains unreliable, and the options for the homeless are limited — people are becoming more aware of the dire conditions in which many are forced to live.
