"It's only being a disabled friend that makes me feel like no matter how much I spend on blood transfusions, it's worth it. All this time we are still languishing at a high cost, but I think it's worth it. Because there are thousands of people now, and in the future there will be hundreds of thousands or millions of disabled college students to realize their self-worth on my platform."

--Zheng Weining, Chairman of Canyou Group

The age of 43 was a turning point in the life of Zheng Weining, chairman of Canyou Group. That year, suffering from congenital hemophilia, he took the 300,000 RMB left by his mother for blood transfusion to start a new business, which he called "Autonomous Self-Help Movement for the Disabled".

At the time of the interview with Social Entrepreneur, Zheng Weining had just finished surgery. But he was still glowing and ambitious when talking about the realization of the potential of people with disabilities and the future of social enterprises in China. "In these twelve years, we haven't borrowed a dime from the bank, and we haven't received a single donation from the government or society." He is proud of the fact that Canyou can grow and thrive in the midst of social adversity and economic dilemma, and expects that this platform, which does not seek to maximize profits and aims at "strong employment for disadvantaged groups" of people with disabilities, will become a "world-class model of social enterprise".

"Let the very near death become a motivation! Zheng Weining, who is already 56 years old, slowly spoke of the shadow of death that has surrounded him for years: "Medically speaking, hemophilia can only be lived up to the age of 50, and both my uncle and grandfather passed away around the age of 47." But he faces it openly, "One cannot fight fate, but one can decide how to live each day. I am setting an example to other Canyou on how they should live each day."

Zheng Weining is positive, optimistic and full of hope for the future. It's as if all the depression and sadness of his pre-43 days have long since been sublimated.

To some extent, Zheng Weining is lucky to be able to survive in a desperate business. Because his father was a soldier, "every time I had an attack, a soldier gave me a blood transfusion." But his cousins, who also suffered from hemophilia, passed away because they did not have such a condition.

In the early 1990s, Zheng Weining's father died. His mother moved with his family of three from Wuhan in 1995 to Shenzhen, the only city that practiced voluntary blood donation at the time, so that he could have a safe blood transfusion in the event of an illness.

Zheng Weining misses his childhood days in Wuhan. Even though he couldn't go to school because he was seriously ill, he wasn't bored. Every day, he would go to his neighbors' and friends' houses, eat, chat and watch TV together, and had his own social life. But after more than a decade in Shenzhen, he has not been able to chat with his neighbors in the building, and has lost his interaction and connection with the rest of the society.

"In a slow-moving society, everyone has plenty of time, and the disadvantaged are surrounded by friends. But in a society with rapid economic development, who has time to play with you Canyou!" Zheng Weining was a bit agitated.

In order to sustain the family, his wife is also busy with her work and his daughter with her studies. "They are not at home during the day. I just watch TV, read the newspaper, go to bed, watch TV again, read the newspaper and go to bed. In the evening when they come back for dinner, they all have their own new experiences of the day and I never have anything to talk about because I don't have my own circle of life."

With this kind of day-to-day life with no new ideas, Zheng Weining suffered from major depression.

In 1999, the sudden death of his mother was an even more serious blow to him.

Zheng Wei Ning felt as if he was a shipwreck that no one cared about, "quietly waiting to rot in the water, but with a sideways glance he could still see other ships sailing by".


Like Liu Yuxi's poem, "A thousand sails pass by a sinking boat, and ten thousand trees spring up in front of a sick tree", it is so lonely and helpless.

Zheng Weining attempted suicide three times. The family was anxious and fearful, unwilling to lose him, but not knowing what to do.

Before founding Canyou, Zheng Weining lived in this desperate situation every day.

Through the Internet, Disability Disadvantage Becomes Strength Computers and the Internet have changed all that.

His wife bought him a computer to encourage him to do something. A thick computer primer, Zheng Weining nibbled on it for months, reading a little, feeling a little. Sleepy, sleepy, woke up in the middle of the night and then read, can not read and then do ...... Despite the very hard, but he found it interesting, "the brain can finally no longer think about jumping off a building to commit suicide."

Zheng Weining found the computer world of the marvelous: the computer screen not only shielded the disabled mobility disadvantage, but also let the disabled "strong" up. Because they can't go anywhere but in front of the computer, the disabled have more patience and determination than the able-bodied.


He started to contact other Canyou to set up a "Shenzhen Computer Interest Class for the Disabled" at home, and found a retired professor to enlighten the disabled.

From the interest class, website construction to the establishment of a software company, animation company, Zheng Weining has been groping for the qualities of Canyou's practice and business model, and step by step, in Shenzhen, a city with dense high-tech industry, to open up a special path of social enterprise.

He knows very well that "there is no second or third in any industry, the winner is the king and the loser is the enemy, the market is so big that you can't support others if you are supported, and you can only do the best!"


Under the leadership of Zheng Weining, Canyou Group has crossed the city and province, and got the title of national high-tech enterprise; in terms of software, it has got the Carnegie Corporation of America's "Certification of Software Maturity in the World" (CMMI) Level 3 certification.

Every Canyou who sits in front of the screen without going out of the house and can hardly walk has a special title called "Internet Steel Warrior". But it's not easy to start a business with the "steel warriors". Zheng Weining has been under a lot of pressure, every month, to earn money and is to earn a large sum of money to pay wages become the top priority. 12 years, Zheng Weining did not owe the staff a penny of salary, he is clear that some of the staff has established a family, "they need to have a child's milk powder money.

Many Canyou's wives don't have jobs, and their families depend on him for food."

"You can't expect the government to give you money, you can't say there's not enough this month and ask the public to donate, you can't!" Being a social enterprise like this relies on a rigid will.

Emphasis on employment rehabilitation "the more disabled the more beautiful"

Before starting his own business at the age of 43, there was no problem with having enough to eat and drink. , but Zheng Weining felt no dignity or happiness. "Not only do I need my family to feed and care for me every inch of the way, but the cost of blood transfusions of 10,000 to 200,000 dollars a year, this burden is very heavy. If I can't support myself, I don't feel the need to live."

"People are not pigs, they are not fed." People with disabilities also have their own dignity and need self-realization. "The measure of a society's progress is not how wide the roads are or how high the GDP is, but that as many proportions of people as possible can feel happy and live a dignified life."

Zheng Weining hopes that the platform for Canyou will enable the disabled to see their own value while realizing their potentials, thus leading a dignified life. In his opinion, the platform of the Canyou is not for the relief of the disabled, but for them to "show their ability". The slogan of Canyou is "The more disabled, the more beautiful", which means we hope that on this employment platform mainly for the disabled, every Canyou can realize their potentials and become stronger and more beautiful than those in the mainstream society.

"Don't shout about equality, participation and sharing, it's useless! You have to let him realize his potential at work, realize his potential, and get paid what he deserves," says Zheng Weining, who stresses the importance of "employment rehabilitation" for the disabled. Though they need extra equipment and assistance in their self-realization and work, this is exactly what the society and the government should provide and work towards.

Zheng Weining's "disability-oriented" supporting experiments include: "You can't do laundry, I have free laundry; you can't travel, I have a fleet of cars; you go out to talk about business, I'll send you a car. You are not convenient to buy food I have a free canteen, providing five dishes and one soup." These are the benefits that the social enterprise "Canyou" provides to all employees.

"You are willing to pursue the realization of your own greater value, you come to this platform," Zheng Weining wants to enter the disabled friend of the disabled college students have no more requirements, as long as there is the exhibition of energy and hard work awareness. "We call this a revolutionary awareness, we are a revolution of people with disabilities to help themselves spontaneously."


The success of the Canyou, but also Zheng Weining's character has changed radically, he is more optimistic, but also more mature. "I have to be mature, and as a community leader of hundreds to thousands of people, if I'm not mature, they're going to have problems." This change in character has also allowed him to get along more harmoniously with his family, who have benefited from "putting the changes that the outside world has given me into my home."

Humanitarian Retirement System for People with Disabilities with More Dignity

Li Hong, a senior physics student at Peking University, used to work as a programmer in a famous software company in Beijing, and has become increasingly immobile due to progressive muscular dystrophy.


During that time, Li Hong improved the website system, developed and promoted various software and hardware that can be used to access the Internet by hearing and touching, and actively created free software systems for many welfare organizations. He not only won the programming championship of Guangdong Canyou's Vocational Skills Competition, but also was appointed as the Chief Engineer of China Canyou's Service Network. He also represented Chinese Canyou to participate in the World Vocational Skills Olympiad for the Disabled held in New Delhi, India, and won the 5th place in the programming program. During this period, Li Hong met his wife, Hu Ying.


Unexpectedly, at the end of 2005, just married less than 3 months, the body is getting worse Li Hong but in the work of a sudden onset, shortness of breath, almost shock.

Talking about Li Hong, who has traveled the entrepreneurial road together, Zheng Weining is not without emotion. "Many Canyou because of genetic progressive diseases, his natural life span may be just a few years. But such a Canyou in his short life, he also needs to reflect the value of his life, live with dignity and leave with dignity."

However, "The general social security system doesn't have fifteen years to keep you from retiring, and even we can legally fire someone and send them home to die. But that kind of death is very undignified." Zheng Weining began to think about how Canyou could provide employees who could no longer work with a worry-free welfare protection, so that they could live with dignity for as long as their lives lasted?

Since then, Canyou has introduced the "Retirement" system, whereby disabled employees who can no longer work are paid their salaries and living allowances in full until the last moment of their lives.


There are two characteristics of the retirement system of the Canyou. First, "no checks, no thresholds". According to Zheng Weining, if there is a threshold for withdrawal, it is almost the same as not allowing people to withdraw. Not to mention, "As a Canyou, I know that as long as I have an ounce of strength to be able to do it, I would never want to lie down and retire."

Considering the fact that although Canyou can still enjoy the company's benefits of free travel, laundry and meals after retirement, they need to be taken care of by their parents, cannot live in a group home, and have an increased cost of living. Therefore, the retired salary of the Canyou is calculated based on the highest salary of the employee's
working period.

Over the past five years, Li Hong has sustained his life with dignity with his wife under the protection of the retirement system.

One might wonder if such a system would not be a burden on the disabled to operate. "What at first seemed like a burden to us is now being evaluated by human resource researchers as the best way to motivate the potential of employees." This system, which was originally just from a humanitarian point of view, has instead turned out to be the most effective incentive, "People with severe disabilities who don't have long to live will come in and work harder to learn and work to reach their highest point of retirement pay." At present, almost all of the top management and technical leaders of the Canyou are severely Canyou, which can be said to be a true reflection of "the more disabled the more beautiful".

For Zheng Weining, Canyou is not only concerned about the employment of Canyou, but also "focusing on the interaction between people and the environment, the establishment of new relationships between people, and the pursuit of human happiness, which is called social enterprise."

Build a "World's Best Social Enterprise Model"

Build a "World's Best Social Enterprise Model"

In mid-November 2009, Zheng Weining was admitted to the hospital again due to hemorrhaging. After this brush with death, he left a will on property inheritance in the presence of a lawyer. He decided to donate 90% of the shares of Canyou Group and other shares under his name to the "Zheng Weining Charity Foundation" under the supervision of the Shenzhen Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau. On the other hand, it also reflects his higher expectations for Canyou.

"Whether Canyou can shield itself from the temptation of profit maximization and maintain the ambitious goal of being an employment platform for people with disabilities when there is a business vision has always been our biggest challenge!" He describes Handicapped Friends as a social enterprise walking on a tightrope, on the one hand preventing it from becoming a social organization that simply accepts social donations and government purchases, and on the other hand preventing it from becoming a business machine that seeks to maximize profits. These are not the reasons why he set up Canyou in the first place.

Zheng Weining believes that the most valuable significance of the existence of the Canyou is that it has the potential to become a "world-class model of social enterprise".

The development of Canyou is multi-dimensional. The Canyou Group and its subsidiaries are responsible for the eight-hour working day of people with disabilities, which is also the main source of income for the business. Outside of working hours, there are "Information Accessibility Research Institute", "Social Work Service Office", "China Disability Service Network" and "China Disability Service Network Volunteer Team". In addition, there are public welfare organizations such as "Information Accessibility Research Institute", "Social Work Service Office", "China Canyous Service Network" and "China Canyous Service Network Volunteer Team" to provide social services related to the disabled.

Nevertheless, Zheng Weining, who has been groping for a solution in practice, still feels that Canyou "are still weak and need more support from their peers." He looks forward to more understanding of the meaning of social enterprise, focusing on social enterprise venture capital and loans to support the disabled, we together to establish a "world's best social enterprise model".

Zheng Weining hopes that the social innovation of "Strong Employment for Disadvantaged Groups", a new form of economic innovation, will be a great gift to the world, so that people with disabilities around the world can be integrated into the mainstream society through computers and the Internet.

The Canyou, which has already developed in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, plans to explore the environment and promote the employment model for the disabled in China's first-, second- and third-tier cities, as well as in remote rural areas, and to understand the different industrial chain development in urban and remote areas, in order to provide a replicable model that can be chosen by various regions around the world.

Zheng Weining has been received by national leaders** four times, is a high-tech representative of Shenzhen's 40 industry leaders in 30 years, and is a representative of Chinese social entrepreneurs invited to participate in this year's Summer Davos Forum. Despite his numerous titles and honors, his simplicity and truthfulness have never changed, "I went to be a disabled friend to change my own destiny, and when I found out that I could change the destiny of Canyou around me, I tried to push this model to all of China and the world. I look forward to promoting Handicapped Friends and at the same time making the Canyou and volunteers who have been with me for so many years have a higher social status and better financial income, that's all."