Home>Service> Awardees of Fervent Global Love of Lives Award> 14th Fervent Global Love of Lives Award 2011> An angel of Beautiful Gate─Hsieh Hsiu-chen, Malaysia
Make incomplete to be loved; assist the minority groups
      Hsieh Hsiu-chen, the Chief Secretary of Malaysian Beautiful Gate Disabled Foundation, was born in Malacca in 1966. She was born in a disabled family: her grandfather, father, second elder brother, eldest sister, third younger brother, youngest sister and she all suffer from hereditary muscular atrophy. She has borne the cursed fate. People attributed her fate to the past life regression committed a sin, and that's why this life invited nemesis. As a result of those bullies, during the first 13 years seen as the purest golden age, Hsiu-chen was inferior, full of remorse and always kept to herself. She even hurt herself and was almost committed a suicide.
      At age fourteen, Hsiu-chen became a Christian. She was irradiated by Bible, which helped her find the stream in the desert. After graduating from Divinity school with the first place in 1993, she soon made all efforts to found “Beautiful Gate Disabled Care Center”, “Beautiful Gate Disabled Rehabilitation Center”, “Beautiful Gate Disabled Arts Associations”, “Beautiful Gate Recycling Studio”, and “Beautiful Gate Foundation for the Disabled” in order to inspire all Malaysian disabled to walk out from the life cage, break through all obstacles, well use assistance aids, learn professional skills, emerge into the society, and live like ordinary people. In 2000, Hsiu-chen was awarded Malaysian Ten Outstanding Youth. In 2008, Hsiu-chen and the former Prime Minister Mahathir were both awarded the title Ahli Mahkota Wilayah by the president .
 
 
Love was never close---found “ Beautiful Gate Disabled Care Center ”
      In 1991, when Hsiu-chen was studying Christian theology at school, she was invited to join a disabled association. In the association, she met a group of disabled friends who suffered from different diseases. When getting along with them, Hsiu-chen was deeply touched when listening to their miserable life experience. Called by God, she decided to serve for them.
      After graduating in 1993, Hsiu-chen's suggestion was accepted by Malaysia Christian Methodist. The care service for the disabled named “Beautiful Gate Disabled Care Ministry” was firstly founded. Hsiu-chen became the first general director and the only staff at that time.
      Although Hsiu-chen was unable to move freely, her hands were not nimble, and sometimes had problems of respiration and swallowing, given a ride by her husband Wei-bin Wu, who suffered from infantile paralysis, she visited to the disabled's houses or hospitals for caring and counseling.
      In those days, there were no accessible environments or tolerable social views on the disabled. There were no accessible facilities on streets, in buildings or on transportation. Many disabled were therefore locked in their houses by the heaps of hinders in the society. Neither did their life have directions nor meanings.
      Hsiu-chen read lots of care service overseas on the Internet. After deep consideration, Hsiu-chen decided to establish a disabled care center so that the disabled could grow up in accessible space and learn to be independent. The center also offered transportation service, counseling service, employment service, school service and outdoor activities to allow the disabled to go out to work, study and have healthy social activities. In 1995, Beautiful Gate Disabled Care Center, which was the first Malaysian disabled center run by the disabled was founded in Petaling Jaya.
      At that time, although multiple services were provided, there was the only one worker. Hsiu-chen was in charge of administration, finance, organization and so on. In the beginning, Hsiu-chen didn't know that fund-raising could be a way, so she spent all monthly salary earned from the Methodist on board of the disabled members. Her husband was responsible for the needs or cost on transportation. One year later, some volunteers began working there after finishing their work. The financial operation system was thus founded.
      There were no existing courses in the center. Every course was accorded with the disabled members' educational history and abilities. Some proper arrangements through the help of other academic organizations or companies were also made. Meanwhile, the center provided many opportunities for the disabled members to get in touch with the society and to learn how to lead an activity.
      Through Hsiu-chen's efforts, many disabled started to walk out from the cage, go into the society and became more and more independent. On the other hand, under Hsiu-chen's help, some people with severe disability reckoned that they were incapable of living independently received abundant assistance to live on their own in the community. Some other disabled friends even imitated Hsiu-chen, devoting themselves to serving for the disabled.
      In 1996, Hsiu-chen realized that the acquired disabled urgently required different service. She then founded Beautiful Gate Disabled Recovery Center in Kuala Lumpur . She hired two acquired disabled who provided the acquired disabled for peer counseling as well as support and assistance in returning to the society.
      In 1999, Hsiu-chen led the local Methodist to establish Campbell Beautiful Gate Disabled Education Center . In 2001, Hibiscus Beautiful Gate Disabled Art Center was founded. In 2006, Malacca Beautiful Gate Disabled Care Center and Port Klang Beautiful Gate Disabled Service Center were founded. In 2009, Manjong Beautiful Gate Disabled Care Center was founded.
      What's worth to be mentioned is that, the office chefs of these centers were the disabled, and they all received the help of the local Methodists. In other words, Hsiu-chen has not only offered assistance to the disabled, but has trained many disabled leaders who led many disabled to serve for other disabled.
 
 
Abilities from love─found “Beautiful Gate Disabled Arts Association”

      The public's negative view on the disabled is one of the reasons why the disabled can't emerge into the society. In order to change such a deep-seated opinion, With the president of the disabled association, Ling -l in Xie , Hsiu-chen established the first national art group--- Beautiful Gate Disabled Art Association, which was led by the disabled. They led the disabled to an art palace. Through their artistic performances, the public saw the disabled's self-improvement and the positive and optimistic image instead of the poor and miserable image as they thought before. In the meantime, the public was also encouraged and inspired by the association's performances.
      Beautiful Gate Disabled Art Association has subverted the ideological image of the disabled---“accept only”. Instead, they were given another name---“contribute to the society”. In 2000, through the dance of “the most wheelchairs”, it was listed on Malaysian Book of records. Hsiu-chen not only took Beautiful Gate Disabled Art Association to perform in all big cities of Malaysia , but also in Thailand and Philippine. The shows not just encouraged the disabled to love their life, but encouraged the youth to be positive and confident.
 
 
Love recycling─found “Beautiful Gate Recycling Studio”
      Due to a lot of obstacles and inconvenience, many disabled were not well-educated. Furthermore, some of them couldn't find a job because of their clumsiness. For these disabled, Hsiu-chen established “Beautiful Gate Recycling Studio”. The studio gave them opportunities to rebuild their confidence as well as re-find their dignity in the workplace. The studio reminded people of the importance of resource recycling and thus served an awakening function of environment protection.
      Further, to make these useful resources reused again as well as to exploit new job opportunity for the disabled, Hsiu-chen established “Beautiful Gate Second-Hand Garage” in 2009, selling second-hand goods. It gave opportunities to the disabled to work there, and learn how to handle financial cases and run business.
 
 
Rooted by love─found “Beautiful Gate Foundation for the Disabled”
      In 2007, through a friend's introduction, Hsiu-chen went to visit six-year-old Huang Wei-chang, who suffered from cerebral palsy. He was so small and weak, wearing dirty clothes and flinching against the wall. Due to a lack of care, little Wei-chang's hands and feet were full of rash and wounds bitten by mosquitos and bugs. He was living in such a poor family---Wei-chang's mother suffered from severe epilepsy and his father, hemiplegia. Hsiu-chen was worried that if Wei-chang was continually exposed under such terrible surroundings, his growth would be negatively affected and even lost educated opportunities.
      Therefore, in 2008, Hsiu-chen decided to establish “Beautiful Gate Foundation for the Disabled” in order to provide proper caring and education for children with disability. At present, up to 914 children with disability have been benefited by this plan. Under Hsiu-chen's lead, in 2003, the outstanding performance of Beautiful Gate Center made itself attain the relevant department's approval and register as Beautiful Gate Foundation for the Disabled. It was awarded tax free the next year. The relevant department's approval and praise made 30 full-time employees able to provide diverse services for up to 9100 people with disability through seven Beautiful Gate Centers. This significantly comforted Hsiu-chen.
 
 
Dignity out of love─appeal to laws for social justice

      Hinders of surroundings and transportation is the main reason that the disabled couldn't emerge into the society. Therefore, while Hsiu-chen was serving for the disabled, she always remembered to ask for social justice for them.
      Hsiu-chen usually led the disabled to plan parades and join appeal-relevant activities, such as handing in memorandums and petitions. She showed up in different political meetings to ensure that the disabled's rights were not deteriorated. Through Hsiu-chen and the disabled's efforts, accessible facilities have gradually designed in many places, such as town SS 2 in Petaling Jaya.
      Among the memorandums handed by Hsiu-chen and her disabled friends, the most representational one was Beyound 2000: Equal Opportunities and Rights for the People with Disabilities (Printmate Sdn.Bhd, ISBN-983- 9796-05-4 ). The memorandums were taken as important references of the disabled service by the political department.
      In addition, in the area of employment for the disabled, Hsiu-chen made significant contributions. In 2001, Hsiu-chen led 24 disabled groups to write down the only Malaysian memorandum named “Malaysian disabled and employment” and handed it to Malaysian Human Resource Department. This memorandum pushed the government to take the problem of employment for the disabled seriously. The government then established a disabled employment group in the relevant department attempting to help the disabled find a job.
      The protection of the law is the only way to guarantee the disabled's rights. After Hsiu-chen and the disabled's continuous efforts over these years, Malaysian government finally passed third reading of “Malaysian disabled code”. Hsiu-chen was also invited to be the director of “The Board of Disability” by the government.