Weekend Long Read: ‘De Facto Orphans’ Find a Home — for Now

By Zheng Haipeng and Lu Zhenhua

Each afternoon, a column of children in bright yellow safety caps marches out of Fenyi County No. 1 Central Primary School. Led by fifth-grader Huang Anran, they walk through the bustling crowds and pass rice paddies and vegetable patches until they arrive at a large courtyard.

This is De Ren Yuan, or “Garden of Virtue and Benevolence,” a private residential facility that for 17 years has served as a lifeline for a growing group of children: “de facto orphans.”

These are minors whose parents, for a variety of reasons — including severe illness, disability, imprisonment, or disappearance — are unable to care for them. De Ren Yuan is their home.

A home for the forgotten

The institution’s dining hall, dormitories and study rooms are housed in a three-story building. Outside, a large vegetable garden, along with chicken and duck coops, provides a portion of the food for the children’s meals.

On the wall of a first-floor classroom, a slogan reads: “If you don’t endure the hardship of studying now, you will endure the hardship of life later.” Whenever donors visit, the founder, Huang Meisheng, has the children recite it aloud.

Huang, a former deputy director of the county education bureau, established De Ren Yuan in 2008. He noticed that some students lacked guardians and were becoming what locals called “wild children.” At the time, there was little policy support.

With 200,000 yuan ($27,600) in government funds and a donation from the Shanghai-based De Ren Foundation, he built the facility in Xinyu, Jiangxi province. The first group of 34 children moved in that October.

Life at the home is structured by timetables and bells. At meals, children line up, serve themselves and eat at tables supervised by a student monitor. Another student inspects the washed plates and spoons for cleanliness, sending them back for another scrub if they don’t pass muster. Afterward, clothes are tossed into washing machines before the children shower and settle down for an evening study session.

The children, who call each other brother and sister, sleep eight to a room in bunk beds adorned with stuffed animals. Huang Xuanhao, a third-grader whose father died of illness, clutches a small yellow dinosaur at night. “He’s a lot more outgoing than when he first arrived,” said Yan Hongwei, a full-time caregiver. She remembers him once eating seven or eight chicken legs in one sitting.

Beyond basic needs, the home has slowly added extracurriculars. Volunteers teach music and literature, and the facility holds regular child-safety seminars. The sound of a piano often drifts from a first-floor music room, a gift from a charity that provides lessons. Nearly every child can play a simple tune.

Complex pasts

For years, China’s official welfare system provided support primarily for orphans, defined as children whose parents had both died. It wasn’t until 2019 that a government directive first officially recognized “de facto unattended children,” making them eligible for a monthly living stipend starting in 2020.

“It was only then that I heard the term ‘de facto orphan’,” said Huang. At De Ren Yuan, most children’s fathers have died and their mothers have remarried and moved away, leaving grandparents as the primary caregivers. Others have fathers in prison or two severely disabled parents.

The policy shift hasn’t solved everything. Tian Yuan, 15, has lived at the home since second grade after her father died and her mother left. Because she and her brother have not yet been officially certified as de facto orphans, they share a monthly low-income stipend of 1,200 yuan. If certified, they would each be eligible for a minimum of 1,450 yuan.

The psychological toll on the children is immense. Huang Yajing, 12, whose mother left eight years ago, copes by drawing. After her friend Lin Yi gave her a bracelet, she sketched a delicate hand wearing it, captioned: “June 14, Lin gave Jing a bracelet.” In another drawing of her friend, she wrote, “You deserve to be loved.” But she also confessed to feeling that “we are not children favored by heaven.”

For Huang Meisheng, the most worrying case is fourth-grader Pang Dongdong. His mother and grandfather both suffer from mental illness, and his father’s identity is unknown. When he first arrived, he would often roll on the floor instead of sitting on a chair, repeating, “I don’t have a father.”

During a recent therapy session, a counselor asked him to pick his favorite toy from a large collection. He ignored the action figures and chose a small sculpture of a mother holding an infant.

With the summer holiday approaching, Lin Yi, who is graduating from sixth grade, plans to earn money making and selling hair clips with her grandmother. She wants to buy a gift for Pang Dongdong. “He is a very good person, and pitiable,” she said. “He really needs to be cared for.”

Funding crisis

De Ren Yuan charges nothing for room and board. Its 2025 budget is just over 230,000 yuan, covering food, utilities and modest personal allowances, according to the Nanchang Youth Development Foundation. The money comes almost entirely from social donations and what Huang calls his personal “alms-seeking.”

Since 2020, that funding has become precarious. One long-term corporate donor cut off support after a sharp decline in business. The Shanghai De Ren Foundation, another key backer, also suspended its project funding due to the economic impact of the pandemic.

A public fundraising campaign launched on a platform run by tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. in 2021 has raised over 260,000 yuan from more than 9,000 people, but it’s not enough to guarantee stability.

Meanwhile, the state is slowly stepping up. As of the second quarter of 2024, the number of de facto orphans receiving government support nationwide had risen to 414,000, up from 253,000 in 2020, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Data shows the vast majority — 85.3% — are from rural households.

The stipends are sent directly to the children’s legal guardians. Huang hopes that money can be saved for high school and college tuition, creating a path to a better future.

But he believes a more durable solution is needed. He advocates for the government to establish public institutions to care for these children, suggesting that vacant school buildings from rural consolidation could be repurposed.

“When children with similar experiences have a common ‘home,’ they won’t feel lonely or isolated,” Huang said. “When they are together, treated equally, with things to do and food to eat, their psychological health will be better.”

All student names are pseudonyms.

Contact reporter Lu Zhenhua (zhenhualu@caixin.com)

caixinglobal.com is the English-language online news portal of Chinese financial and business news media group Caixin. Global Neighbours is authorized to reprint this article.

Image: hunterbliss – stock.adobe.com