LRS: Reborn

Li Hong seemed helpless before the operation.

Little Red Scarf is in Lanzhou,  Gansu and Yunnan provinces and provides financial support and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, they provide families with post-operative care and help the children sustain a healthy lifestyle.

Li Hong is a 5-year-old girl. She lives in a remote village in Gansu province. Li Hong’s family still shares a house with her uncle, so there are 10 relatives living under one roof. One room is for Li Hong’s family, one is for her uncle’s family, and one is for her grandparents.

When Li Hong was 5 months old, her mother found her out of breath when she was sleeping. Her lips and nails were blue. She was able to walk when she was 1.5 years old but she could barely run. Her mother felt something must have been wrong with her. The village doctor told her mother that her heart had a murmur. She had to have an operation in the city’s hospital.

Last year, her parents went to work in a light factory in a southern city, leaving Li Hong to her uncle and grandparents. After a year, they came back with 30,000 RMB. They were going to take Li Hong to the hospital for the operation. Her situation became serous. She is young and recovery would be slow after the operation. The doctor estimated the operation expenses would be 60,000 RMB. Her parents were frustrated. With the help of the doctor, they called Little Red Scarf.

---

Her toes and fingers seemed clubbed before surgery.

The left photo is before the operation and the right one is after the operation. She became healthier, and cyanosis has disappeared. It was surprising to see Li Hong’s change.

Her application was approved quickly, and her parents were relieved. They were looking forward to a successful operation.

A few days later, Li Hong’s mother took us as her sisters. She told us what she had experienced. Li Hong’s mother came from an impoverished family in Yunnan Province, located at the far southwest of the country. Under the guise of offering work opportunities, a human trafficking ring sold Lihong’s mother to an abusive man in the Shandong Province on the east coast. She was only eighteen. For eight years, she suffered at the hands of this man’s family, giving birth to Lihong’s older sister, until the violence escalated. Someone in the man’s family hacked the mother’s neck with a knife. Villagers rushed Lihong’s mother to the hospital and saved her life. Soon after her recovery, Lihong’s mother took her first daughter and escaped. She reconnected with an old friend, who married a man in Gansu Province in the northwest, and eventually reunited with this friend there. 

Her friend’s new family had always suffered financially. Ten years ago, the grandmother fell on ice and broke her hip bone. Without the money for proper treatments, she lost her mobility. The grandfather injured his spine, and cannot handle heavy labor. The medical expenses for the two grandparents are as high as five thousand yuan annually. In this situation, no woman in the village would marry the man who would later become Lihong’s father. Lihong’s mother, whose suffering had made her resilient and strong, saw the gentle nature of this man, and married him. It was to this poor, but honest and decent second family, that Lihong was born. 

Lihong’s family still lives in that three-room adobe house. No doubt she will encounter difficulties in her life, and suffer to make ends meet. But today, to a little girl who can run, whose cheeks are rosy and whose fingers are warm, it is enough. 

It is the 106th Women’s Day today. With the development of society, the status of women is improving, but they are still a vulnerable group. LRS tends to support more women and female children. We also hope the society will give females more cares. We hope all women have a happy Women's Day!

Original Article Written by Guan Ying, translated by Maggie Li and Kai Chao, edited by Yanyan Zhang

---