"Sweet home" project helps disabled people

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Some are luckier. Besides training, they also get jobs.

This rehabilitation room is also a small factory. All these  young people with mental handicaps are workers.

This rehabilitation room is also a small factory. All these young people with mental handicaps are workers.

Li Tonghe of Xinjiekou Sweet Home Management Office, said, "They are very happy here. They get paid for their work. Although the job is simple, it makes them feel they are useful. Equally important, many of them learnt how to communicate with people through the work."

So far, Beijing has established 150 such "Sweet Homes", providing services at grassroots level. Most of the funding comes from the government.

Zhang Zhongxi, deputydirector of Xinjiekou Community Office, said, "It's really difficult to provide services for disabled people without a somewhere like this. But I am afraid the place is not big enough and we are still short of hands. We need more people to help."

Beijing has about 1 million people physically disadvantaged. The government plans to establish enough community-based Sweet Homes by 2010 to ensure every person with disability can have access to these recreation and rehabilitation services.

Editor:Zhang Ning