You can't give up on every little starfish

What makes you who you are is your personality and culture.

In June 2016, Du Cong, a rural philanthropist, shared his journey of helping AIDS orphans in a speech at Peking University. At that time in rural Henan, some illegal blood stations operated illegally, resulting in many poor farmers infected with AIDS from selling blood.

At that time, he was already an elite Wall Street investment banker. Because of the project, he came to the local investigation. Almost every family he visited had AIDS patients. When Mr. To visited a mother lying in a sick bed with bulging ribs and sunken eyes, she squeezed his hand and begged him to help care for her baby.

Back at work, To Cong never forgot what he saw in the AIDS village. The weight of his young children's suffering, and the wistful look in his mother's eyes when she saw him, kept him awake at night. He wanted to do something to help the children, but he also knew he could do only a drop in the bucket compared to society's stigma against people with AIDS. To Cong thought all night about his direction of effort, huge mental pressure left him once on the verge of collapse.

During a conversation, his brother enlightened him: "Do you remember when I was a child and took you to Victoria Bay to play? On that day, many starfish were carried to the shore by the tide. You only picked them up one by one and threw them back into the sea, but you were too weak and threw them too close, and the starfish were carried to the shore again. When I told you not to, it was a waste. But you kept at it and told me not to give up on every starfish. Every time I saved one, it meant something to the one that was saved."

His family's encouragement rekindled his hopes, and this year he quit his million-a-year job at a bank to launch the Chi Hang Foundation. "Wise action" is to put wisdom into action to help the unfortunate.

As a graduate of Harvard University, To knows the great role of education in changing one's life. He does not limit the number of subsidies, in every village, all eligible families can get help; He does not limit the direction of study. Some children go to Peking University and Tsinghua University to study, some children get a skill in the training school, and some children start their own business to help more peers.

The only thing he asked was for the children to have a grateful heart. Every year during the holidays, hundreds of assisted students, as AIDS orphans, return to their hometowns to teach and visit their families, encouraging their younger siblings with their own experiences.

One day, while visiting children in preschool, To was struck by a comic strip of a little girl, the first of which showed her asking her mother, who was sick in bed, to sell herself so she could have money to cure her illness. In the second, she tells her mother not to be sad because she will come back to her when she grows up.

Looking at the childish and sensible words, To Cong tears wet eyes, he deeply felt that more important than funding school is to help children have a strong heart, brave to face AIDS, to overcome the shadow of discrimination.

So he started an art healing program for young children, helping them build confidence through drawing, singing, dancing, and drama. He also organized AIDS orphans in rural areas to visit famous companies, universities, and museums in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, or have afternoon tea in five-star hotels. In this way, he hopes to let the children know about the world and set goals.

During the Spring Festival in 2006, the father of one of the children was killed in an explosion while working in a firecracker factory. Hearing this, To thought about it for a long time. He realized that the root cause of AIDS orphans is not the disease, but the problem of rural poverty. To help AIDS orphans, we should start by helping farmers find healthy and sustainable careers.

As the Chi Hang Foundation becomes more and more famous, many big brands at home and abroad want to donate money directly to HIV/AIDS patients through the foundation. To spend a lot of time and effort persuading them to invest the money in factories, making environmentally friendly products, and hiring infected people. In his view, charity is not charity. Infected people can earn a dignified income and improve their lives by working more. Profits from production can be used to support AIDS orphans in the long term.

To universities, public welfare organizations, and enterprises both at home and abroad every year for 40 to 50 speeches, he often flies around the world, but he still insists on time every day and the kids say the truth, have a chat QQ, WeChat, introduce and help them to choose professional jobs, etc., and his most insist, is personally interview each college students apply for funding, To cultivate their sense of social responsibility and continue to help more people.

To has been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Prize, a public welfare and charity award known as the "Asian Nobel Prize".

In his opinion, every orphan with AIDS is a little starfish. "No matter how much discrimination they have been subjected to, how much poverty and disease they have been affected by, as long as we do not give up every starfish, they can achieve good development through love, encouragement, and cultivation. I believe they will become the first in China and the world!"