Reflections from my International Visitor Leadership Program to the U.S.
I feel so lucky to have had the chance to join the five-week International Visitor Leadership Program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. My route included Washington D.C., Salt Lake City, UT, Kansas City, MO, Charlotte, NC, and Louisville, KY as a part of International Visitor Leadership Program. Then I visited New Haven, CT, New York City, NY, Eugene, OR, and San Francisco, CA with American friends whom I got to know through my work in China.
Inclusive Education for People with Disabilities
Inclusive education is the standard in American education nowadays. Public schools must accept students with all types of disabilities. They provide not only accessible facilities, but also disability-related aids supported by federal and local governments. For instance, students with hearing impairments study with other students in the same classroom and are accommodated with a sign language interpreter who will sit near them.
I visited California’s Bridge School, which is a school for students of all ages with significant cerebral palsy that shares part of the same campus with an elementary school. In this way the two schools are able to work together on many activities during the school day.
In China, the situation that we still find today for many students with severe disabilities is that they often have to stay at home and lose the opportunity to study with their peers. Recently, with the decline in the population of youth in China, many schools have had to combine or close down. As a result, two villages share one primary school; a county retains a sole high school. The students with severe disabilities have to move a long way to go to school. It’s very difficult for them because their families don’t have cars and the schools are not accessible for them.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, a volunteer with the International House of Metrolina invited me to join an outdoor activity with students with cognitive disabilities from East Mecklenburg High School, a public high school for more than 2000 students. I met the students at the entrance to a superstore where the school organizes buses and teachers to take the students twice a week. They not only came for fun, but also were required to complete a task such as comparing prices of goods. An assistant of a special education teacher also told me about a very successful sports competition which they recently held for the students with disabilities at East Mecklenburg High School in which a local NBA basketball player volunteered.
This experience contrasts to my visit to a special school for students with hearing, speech, and vision impairments in Guangxi, one of the poorer provinces in China. During the trip to Guangxi, I was told by a volunteer there that students with disabilities have to remain in the school every day as teachers are afraid of the potential dangers of letting volunteers take them out of school. So students at this boarding school only can ask their teachers to bring them what they need, such as shampoo and other daily necessities, instead of being able to shop for themselves.
Ongoing Demand for Change
At a reception for all of the international visitors in Kansas City, Missouri, I met a woman who is studying for her doctoral degree in Special Education at the University of Kansas. When I praised the success of the American special education system, she said her work was to persuade some new immigrants to the U.S. to allow their children with disabilities to go to school. She explained that often times new immigrant families move very frequently to follow work opportunities, but as a result, they do not consider how to best provide for their disabled children’s education. I could see how the American education system is still working on some of these difficult issues related to inclusive education.
During my visit to Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, I had the opportunity to visit the College of Professional Studies and Outreach (CPSO). CPSO had great programs and resources for people with disabilities. In one program, they visit many areas in the U.S. and provide help for people with disabilities and their families during their vacations. They also teach the families how to take care of their disabled relatives. Another CPSO program is offering an intensive 1-week leadership training in Theater Arts for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People of Color. The focus is on three distinct areas: (1) History of Deaf theater and theater arts by people of color, (2) Actors movements, and (3) Play production.
I also visited Mobility International USA (MIUSA) in Eugene, Oregon, where some colleagues were busy preparing for an upcoming program. MIUSA is an organization which provides information to support students with disabilities to study abroad. Its Women's Institute on Leadership and Disability (WILD) is a training camp that brings together new and emerging grassroots women leaders with disabilities from around the world to build skills, exchange experiences and strategies, create new visions, and strengthen international networks of support. Through a series of intensive workshops, women move forward in their personal and professional roles as disabled world leaders.
The situation is vastly different in China, as there are very few organizations established to assist persons with disabilities or their families. To use an example from my own experience, after I got in a car accident at 5 years old and had to spend two tough years in the hospital, I remember my parents unceasingly asking for help from society. But their efforts were in vain as nobody was able to provide support during this time. Now, when I watch TV or read the newspaper, some ads of parents asking for help for their disabled son or daughter immediately grab my attention. I understand how many pressures the families facing a disability have in China. As the China Disabled Persons’ Federation and the field of social work develop in China, the situation is becoming better.
The last organization I visited on my trip was Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program (BORP) in Berkeley, California one weekend morning. At BORP’s drop-in center for adaptive cycling, I met some of the volunteers who helped to fix and modify the bikes. They warmly talked with me and fitted me for a handcycle. It was my first time to ride this wonderful adaptive bicycle, and I began to wonder if local bike shops in Guangzhou, China could help to make these adaptive bikes. This type of technology would enable persons with various disabilities to travel easily in the city, especially along an area of the city which has accessible bike paths beside Guangzhou’s Pearl River. When I talked with BORP about my intention of outreach for adaptive cycling in China, they said they would like to donate some handcycles, yet we were limited by the expensive shipping fees.
When I went to the University of California-Berkeley, there were wheelchair basketball competitions at its recreation center. At least 40 participants, most being amateurs, enjoyed playing. The organizer of the event was a student and volunteered to teach other students wheelchair basketball skills every week. She told me that all the wheelchairs were provided by BORP, and the activity was held as a fundraiser. I was touched by the harmonious scene that I saw taking place there, and I couldn’t stop asking myself “Could I take this activity to China?” Thanks to Ben Strong, a director at Volunteers in Asia who formerly volunteered in China, we now have adaptive bikes that were purchased through a bike-a-thon fundraiser he did!
The Guangzhou English Training Center for the Handicapped (GETCH, www.getch.org.cn), where I work and was a student, is a non-profit, non-governmental school established in 1994. GETCH provides tuition-free 3-year associate’s degree in business English and computer skills for sixty 18-25 year old students in China who are physically disabled.
Perhaps my collaborations with MIUSA, BORP, Volunteers in Asia and support through programs like the U.S. Department of States’ Sports United programs could make it possible to bring Americans for recreational events like this in China, or bring our GETCH students to the U.S. to experience it too. It would continue my exciting journey onward.
Well Zhao was born in Shijiazhuang City, China. He is the vice president of Guangzhou English Training Center for the Handicapped (GETCH), the director of GETCH Community Department, and a former student at GETCH (2003-2006).
Through the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) foreign leaders in government, public policy, media, education, labor, the arts and other key fields travel to the United States to meet and confer with their professional counterparts.
