Disabled in SW China's Yunnan thrive making bamboo handiworks

Chen Yuanxian works on a bamboo product at a workshop. (People's Daily Online/Cheng Hao)

At a workshop in Daguan county, Zhaotong city, southwest China's Yunnan Province, 32-year-old Chen Yuanxian and her eight colleagues, all of whom are people with disabilities, were busy making bamboo handiworks.

Chen, with infantile paralysis, can't stand on her own and her family was identified as impoverished due to a labor shortage. Chen was desperate to find a job to support her family.

Qiong bamboo is a type of bamboo, and Daguan county is known as the "hub of Qiong bamboo" in China. In recent years, the county has made efforts to promote the deep processing of bamboo.

Chen joined a bamboo processing cooperative in 2019 to learn how to make bamboo handiworks such as walking sticks and calligraphy brushes.

By taking painstaking efforts to learn and practice her techniques, Chen quickly became a skilled worker.

In June 2022, a bamboo culture development company was founded in Daguan by the company Chen worked for and an artware company in east China's Zhejiang Province. Chen began to work in the new company to teach eight people with disabilities to make bamboo products. She can earn a monthly income of 5,000 yuan ($726.35) from her job.