China has so far put up a system of service organization for employment, basically covering up cities and rural areas, in which 3,021 organizations with 28,988 working personnel have been set up for helping the disabled to get employed, becoming an important guarantee for promoting the work of employment of the disabled all over the country.

An obvious improvement for the employment of the disabled

Prior to the "15th nationwide day of aiding the disabled" the reporter met Ma Linxi, a disabled in new village of Xiaofeng Town, Anji County, Zhejiang Province. With the help of the county association for the disabled he set up a fowl raising farm in 1997 and up to now, the annual sales volume has reached 400,000 in total and a sales value of RMB 5 million yuan.

Today, in among the 60 million disabled in the country more and more people like Ma Linxi have found their jobs and stepped onto the road for getting rich.

According to the introduction of the Chinese Association of the Disabled, the disabled as a social colony with most difficulties has witnessed an obvious improvement in the employment for them in China. Up to the present moment, among the nationwide 25 million disabled people at their ages of employment 21.936 million have already got their work to do, of which 4.304 million are from cities and towns and the rest 17.632 million are from the rural areas with more than 10 million disabled having solved the problem of enough food and warm clothing.

8 years of creative work have come up with a fruitful result and Ma Linxi saw an expansion of his fowl raising farm. Now he began to repay the society. He employed 5 disabled to work on his fowl-raising farm with their annual wage income to reach around 20,000 yuan and so they see no more trouble for their daily life. Besides, Ma Linxi entered into cooperation with another 6 disabled for raising fowls, giving them his support in regard of funds, young chicks, fodder and sales distribution. Last year the 6 disabled witnessed an annual income of RMB 30000 yuan for each household and one of them who used to receive his minimum subsidy for life got rid of poverty that very year.

Diversified ways for the disabled to get employed

May 15 was the "15th nationwide-day for aiding the disabled" in China. The thematic topic is "equality to be shared for promoting the employment of the disabled". For days on end, various activities have been conducted in the whole country with the employment for the disabled to be more concerned by many walks of life.

Just the previous day Beijing held an employment talk for the disabled of university graduates to get their jobs. More than 200 came from many places all over the country to get employed in the fields of artistic design, computer, decorative advertisement, finance and gardening and law as well

At present, those disabled employed in the welfare enterprises nationwide come to some 700000 in total and during the "9th Five Year Plan" period and the previous three years of the "10th Five Year Plan" period more and more disabled have come to work as individual workers or business operators. Anyway by diversified ways for aiding the disabled, Hongshen Machinery and Electric Co. Ltd, Zhejiang Province has arranged some 150 disabled to work in the past few years, taking up 57.4 percent of the workers in production, and moreover, still some 70 disabled who came from the poverty-stricken areas are also working here in the company.

What is worth mentioning is that under the protection of special policy the massage business for the blind has witnessed a rapid development and up to the end of 2004 the massage organizations for medical treatment nationwide reached 1917 in all and those for healthcare a total of 7284 in number with some 50000 blind getting employed.

A ceaseless improvement of service system for employment of the disabled

China has so far put up a system of service organization for the employment of the disabled, basically covering up cities and rural areas, in which 3021 organizations with 28988 working personnel have been set up for helping the disabled to get employed, becoming an important guarantee for promoting the work of employment of the disabled all over the country. On this basis, efforts are being made in various places in tapping for a way to form a "standardized" service system, a "professionalized" service detachment and "modernized" ways of service in the development of aiding the disabled. And now with the government to take the lead it has initially formed a public management and operational system for helping the disabled. During the "9th Five Year Plan" period and the previous three years of the "10th Five Year Plan" period the service organizations for helping the disabled to get employed at all levels have by multiple ways and forms trained 1.56 million disabled in cities and towns, 4.4 million in rural areas for their employment and in learning technologies of practical use, thereby initially formed a mechanism for the combination of employment and training. In the meantime, the information service has provided new ways in the service of the disabled, thus laying a foundation for the setting-up of a unified market system of employment and training in the whole country.

Persons from the China Disabled Person's Federation said that there still sees a relatively big difference between the disabled to be employed as against those in society as a whole and with a low quality of employment for the disabled. The related laws, rules and policies for the disabled are required to be improved. In order to provide further maintenance and protection for the employment of the disabled the department concerned of the State Council is working on the law for the employment of the disabled.

By People's Daily Online