“We don’t ask for donations. Instead, we help the disabled people sell their services to partner companies at market prices.”

— Zheng Zhitian, a Shenzhener who has established an incubation center and a Web site for people with disabilities who want to become entrepreneurs

    Helen Deng

    TO many people, charity work means raising donations for the underprivileged.

    But Zheng Zhitian, a Shenzhener, is taking a different approach to charity — he’s helping people help themselves.

    Zheng, 39, has established an incubation center and a Web site for people with disabilities who want to become entrepreneurs.

    The Web site, www.glszhufei.com, went live in December and provides a platform to help the disabled find projects. The incubation center, in Longgang District, helps people with disabilities learn business skills. The entire project is named “Zhufei,” meaning “help you fly.”

    Open since September, the incubator is now training nine people, most of whom are from outside Shenzhen. Zheng said they could be able to start their own businesses in three to six months. Zheng and his staff plan to help participants find business opportunities once the training is completed.

    Currently, the main business of the Web site is booking airline tickets. People at the incubator can sell airline tickets online, at prices as low as those on Ctrip, via Zheng’s Web site.

    Zheng also is considering the launch of a “charity card,” which would allow gas card buyers to donate a certain percentage of the card’s value to the people with disabilities who sell the card.

    “My idea is to do charity without pressure. That is, we don’t ask for donations. Instead, we help the disabled people sell their services to partner companies at market prices,” he said. “We hope the disabled can enter society and no longer be a disadvantaged sector.”

    The project has won support from various people and companies, including Tencent Group and Guangzhou Bank.

    “A senior citizen wanted to donate 100,000 yuan (US$16,000), but we had to decline considering his age,” Zheng said.

    “Money is not a problem as long as we are transparent and fair,” he added.

    But attracting donations is not his aim. Zheng’s ultimate aim is to get more partner corporations and expand business opportunities for people in his program.

    “Nobody would refuse our request to do business with the disabled,” he said. “But even with their commitment, they would sometimes forget (to follow up).”

    Charity in China has come under fire since the Chinese Red Cross was linked to Guo Meimei — a young woman who flaunted extravagant wealth on microblogs while claiming to work as a Red Cross Society of China executive, drawing many questions and criticisms from the public — last year. To Zheng, however, the real problem with the government-run charity lies in the system.

    “The government allows the management of charity funds to retain a certain percentage of the funds as management fees. The result is that the management would put all (its) efforts on raising donations, rather than doing charity work,” he said. “Doing actual charity work could be risky, because if the project got screwed up, somebody would be blamed.”

    Zheng’s ideal model would involve donations channeled either to a charity’s management organization or to the needy in a more transparent process.

    “Donate to the management, or to the needy? It should be up to the donator to decide,” he said.

    Zheng was a chain store consultant before he started the Zhufei project.

    “I was invited by the Olive Tree Disabled Center to lecture the disabled and felt something needed to be done to help them,” he recalled. “I was often touched by the stories of the disabled. Many of them have a strong will despite their health problems.” However, he added, it is often difficult to help people with disabilities regain self-confidence.

    In 2008, Zheng quit his job to focus on charity full time. In 2010, he founded the Olive Tree Disabled People Jewelry & Jade Park, which the city government listed as one of 2011’s top 10 charity projects in Shenzhen. As a result, the park won support from the Shenzhen Municipal Charity Foundation and the Shenzhen Welfare Lottery Foundation.

    Zheng’s ambition is to build the No. 1 Web site for people with disabilities in China and help 100,000 participants start their own businesses.

    Born in Chaozhou, Guangdong, the hometown of many successful businessmen — including Hong Kong’s wealthiest person, Li Ka-Shing — Zheng wants to live a well-off life.

    He believes that people who do charity work should be able to support themselves and their families.

    “If you have a bad economic condition, how can you help others?” he said.

    While Zheng’s salary as a charity worker is lower than his income as a consultant, he believes his income could become 10 times as much as before.

    “We are a social enterprise, instead of a charity organization. The services we provide will enhance our influence, which in turn will bring us more opportunities,” he said.