Initiatives aimed at engaging children with special needs underscore China’s strengthened commitment to inclusion and social support systems

Global Times

13th October 2025

Initiatives aimed at engaging children with special needs underscore China’s strengthened commitment to inclusion and social support systems

By Huang Lanlan in Shanghai

Editor's Note:

China's human rights stories are unfolding in a new era of comprehensive deepening reform and historic changes. It is a key component of China's poverty alleviation and whole-process people's democracy, a thorough reformation in judicial, medical insurance, and other key sectors related to the national economy and people's livelihoods, as well as a combination of numerous impressive and inspiring individual stories.

To be nurtured in youth, educated, secure gainful employment, receive medical care when ill, cared for in old age, have a place to live, and supported when weak... these are the concrete embodiments of human rights, demonstrating that the greatest human right is the right to the happiness of the people. 

For a long time, politicians and media outlets in a handful of countries have remained hostile and prejudicial toward China, leading to a lack of understanding among foreign audiences when it comes to the concepts and achievements of China's human rights development. But what is revealed in the daily lives of the Chinese people speaks to the most basic truth: Rights to survival and development are fundamental human rights. 

The Global Times is launching a series of articles, telling vivid stories about upholding human rights in the new era. We expect the series to become a window through which more foreign readers will understand how Chinese people recognize human rights and what efforts they have made to fight for and fully enjoy human rights in their daily lives.

The stage is set: it resembles a spaceship floating in the vastness of the cosmos. Several actors, accompanied by soothing background music and bathed in soft, dim light, hum a gentle melody as they approach the audience seated on stage with them. They seamlessly weave the names of the young spectators into a welcoming “Hello song,” greeting the children through song.

“Hello, Xiaoyuan,” the actors sing as they step in front of the nine-year-old boy, their soft voices enveloping him. Xiaoyuan blinks his big eyes shyly at them, then covers his face with his hands, though a small smile creeps onto his lips.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202510/1345521.shtml