Home is where heart is

Alison Kennedy is mainly involved in rehabilitation and training of orphans or disabled children at the nonprofit Chuntian Service Center in Hunan province. She says her greatest joy now is to see the chil-dren being taken good care of. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Even after British rehabilitation therapist Alison Kennedy's six-month-long voluntary work for a charity in Central China's Hunan province, had ended in 2004, her mind remained occupied with her "unfinished" chapter. Two years later, she returned to China from her home country to resume the social work and has lived here since.

The 43-year-old works for the Chuntian Service Center, a nonprofit that is located in Hengyang, and it was jointly established in 2005 by the city's civil affairs bureau and the charity International China Concern.

The Hunan nonprofit mainly provides nurseries, medical services, rehabilitation, education and occupational training to orphans or disabled children.

"It's a flexible but challenging job. Once you get involved emotionally, it's not easy to just step away or end it," explains Kennedy about her decision to stay the course.

Kennedy, always in plain clothes and sporting a bright smile, greets visitors in fluent Mandarin.

Mainly involved in rehabilitation and training of such children, Kennedy says her greatest joy now is to see the children at the center being taken good care of.

She had worked at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, England, after graduating from university. In 2004, she volunteered as a rehabilitation therapist for a charity in Hunan's provincial capital Changsha, after a friend who had returned from a similar job in the province told her that therapists like her were needed there.