The man with a recipe to end prejudice against HIV/AIDS

By Zhou Wenting

In January last year, I wrote a story about a visit I made to Village 127, a French bakery and cafe in downtown Shanghai.

I went to interview the bakers and baristas employed there, along with To Chung, founder of the Chi Heng Foundation, which runs the eatery.

While all the young bakers looked at the ground and mumbled when being interviewed, as if they were children making mistakes, To was forthright.

"We cannot control what people think about us, but we have to live with our heads held high," he said.

I visited at a difficult time for Village 127, which had recently featured in a local media report.

The story explained that most of the employees had been born into families affected by HIV/AIDS in the inland provinces, but emphasized that they were all healthy.

Even though the story was intended to combat HIV/AIDS-related stigma, it provoked a fierce backlash; the cafe was bombarded with negative feedback and business declined.

Nevertheless, To remained optimistic. He believed the quality of the bakery's produce was always the first draw for customers and that reasonable people would offer support after learning about the cafe's charitable origins.

To is one of the most impressive people I have ever met.

When he was 27, the former Wall Street banker, who was born in Hong Kong, paid a trip to China from his base in the United States.

During his trip he visited several inland villages affected by HIV/AIDS and immediately decided to help the local children.

He established the foundation, whose name means "wisdom in action", in 1998.

So far, it has helped more than 20,000 people, mostly those orphaned in the 1990s when their parents died after being infected via transfusions of contaminated blood.

To ensure they have a range of skills, the foundation launched the Young Bakers program in 2009.

It provides 30 young people from AIDS-affected families with a year's free training in French baking in Shanghai.

It is hard to imagine how those children lived with the stigma surrounding their parents' illness, especially being shunned by relatives and neighbors and having problems gaining access to education.

If To, now 48, had not appeared in their lives, they may have continued suffering prejudice when looking for work, friends and spouses, housing, and many more things.

To gave them a chance to change their destinies. Some have become mechanical engineers or medical workers, while others, who acquired baking skills during the program, have found jobs at Village 127 and even in well-known five-star hotels.

He compared the young people he helps with numerous starfish on a beach, saying that even though he could only help a limited number, whenever he picked one up and put it back into the sea, he gave it a chance to start a new life.

My sincere hope is that these affected people are subjected to less pressure from society in 2018.

Furthermore, I hope the burden is lifted for To, who has found it increasingly difficult to raise money to pay for the children to be educated as they rise through the grades at school.

Contact the writer at zhouwenting@chinadaily.com.cn