China Connection
TB Fanatic
Heroic grandmother saves 30 babies from trash
Tue Jul 31 2012
An impoverished Chinese grandmother is being hailed as a hero after rescuing more than 30 newborn babies that she found dumped in trash cans while scavenging to make a living.
Lou Xiaoying, now 88 and suffering kidney failure, spent the past 40 years saving abandoned infants from the streets of Jinhua, the Huffington Post reports.
Mrs Xiaoying, who has one biological daughter, raised four of the children with her late husband Lin Zin and gave the others to family and friends.
She found her first baby while collecting rubbish in 1972 and adopted her last child Qiling, a little boy she found in a dumpster, when she was 82.
"Even though I was already getting old I could not simply ignore the baby and leave him to die in the trash," Mrs Xiaoying said.
Her adopted daughter Zhang Juju, 33, said her mother always tried to give her children the best lives possible despite her extreme poverty.
Now that the 88-year-old is confined to a hospital bed, too sick to move or speak, people in her community have come forward to help support her and continue her life's mission.
A fundraising website has been set up to pay for her hospital bills and a local school has stepped forward to realise her dying wish that her youngest child Qiling receive an education.
The Chinese government introduced its one-child policy in 1978, after which families began abandoning female children because they were seen as less valuable than boys.
Sources: Shanai 365 website, the Huffington Post
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8508269/heroic-grandmother-saves-30-babies-from-trash
Tue Jul 31 2012
An impoverished Chinese grandmother is being hailed as a hero after rescuing more than 30 newborn babies that she found dumped in trash cans while scavenging to make a living.
Lou Xiaoying, now 88 and suffering kidney failure, spent the past 40 years saving abandoned infants from the streets of Jinhua, the Huffington Post reports.
Mrs Xiaoying, who has one biological daughter, raised four of the children with her late husband Lin Zin and gave the others to family and friends.
She found her first baby while collecting rubbish in 1972 and adopted her last child Qiling, a little boy she found in a dumpster, when she was 82.
"Even though I was already getting old I could not simply ignore the baby and leave him to die in the trash," Mrs Xiaoying said.
Her adopted daughter Zhang Juju, 33, said her mother always tried to give her children the best lives possible despite her extreme poverty.
Now that the 88-year-old is confined to a hospital bed, too sick to move or speak, people in her community have come forward to help support her and continue her life's mission.
A fundraising website has been set up to pay for her hospital bills and a local school has stepped forward to realise her dying wish that her youngest child Qiling receive an education.
The Chinese government introduced its one-child policy in 1978, after which families began abandoning female children because they were seen as less valuable than boys.
Sources: Shanai 365 website, the Huffington Post
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8508269/heroic-grandmother-saves-30-babies-from-trash
