Author: Yuxi Yue
"They worked deep underground, in claustrophobic conditions. Accidents claimed the lives of several colleges and his healthy lung." Dou Lu sank into her memory, stopping for a while, and then continued to say, "The first time I saw Pneumoconiosis patients was in Hunan. Before I stepped into the room, I heard hoarse breathing, which sounds like a stack of sandpaper rubbed on the ground or a working machine in disrepair. That heavy, discomforting sound is from Zhang Junyan, my first interviewee, who has worked miles for over 15 years and suffered from pneumoconiosis for over seven years without gaining any subsidies or assistance." This heavy and realistic scene strongly shocked her deeply. Before that moment, she probably has never thought of devoting her life to pursuing protection and compensation for this group of invisible laborers in China's mines – Pneumoconiosis patients.
This experience as a volunteer in Hunan initially didn't quickly direct Dou Lu's life in a completely different direction but planted a seed in her heart. She didn't stop being a volunteer in the Love Save Pneumoconiosis foundation when she was still in the film industry. However, on countless midnights, Dou Lu always thought of the wrinkles on Zhang Junyan's face, though filled with dust and years of hard labor, did not hide his genuine smile. She also remembered the wheezing sound that came from his cough, resembling the heavy sound of old machines in factories. Pneumoconiosis is an incurable lung disease suffered by more than 6 million migrant workers in China. In the storm of dust that blows with the urbanization of China, millions of people like Wang are engulfed in the tornado, and millions of Pneumoconiosis patients are just waiting for the approaching death hopelessly, given the lack of money, support, and protection laws.
Gradually, Dou Lu asked herself: if there's always someone in destiny who will do such grand but difficult things as helping this group of voiceless people from deep underground, why can it not be her? Especially in the past two years, Mr. Wang, the director of Love Save Pneumoconiosis, kept encouraging Dou Lu to join the public welfare foundation. He told Dou Lu, "If you want to be a director, society is the biggest stage." Two years of working experience also taught Dou Lu that only a director with a certain sense of life and society could make a good film. The motive of finding her missing inquisitive self in college further consolidates Dou Lu's determination to join the Love Save Pneumoconiosis foundation, prompting her to dedicate all her efforts to establishing a special fund committee for pneumoconiosis patients.
In nearly six years of career in the Love Save Pneumoconiosis foundation, Dou Lu never gives up helping people in need, even when they can only save one patient's life. She said sincerely, with even a few tears in her eyes, "we will keep appealing, keep helping, and keep saving; even if everyone else in the world thinks what we do is a drop in the bucket, we firmly believe in our heart that sand can be built into the tower by gathering day by day, like what we do year after year."
This kind of deamination and persistence come from countless inspirational souls that brought Dou Lu hope. People's stories motivate her to continue fighting for policy changes. Families who sleep on bricks in the mess of wild grasses. An anxious father who worries that his adopted daughter is in poverty. Eight-year-olds commit to being the richest people, so the twins' fathers could go over the mountain and access healthcare. Hopeless patients gathered into a large crowd to wait for her arrival. They are in need of help, and charities are their last speck of hope. Love Save Pneumoconiosis foundation (大爱清尘) is just such an organization that helps pneumoconiosis patients by promoting changes. Motivated to bring the experience in setting up a legislative pneumoconiosis compensation mechanism from Hong Kong to the mainland, the NGO hopes every family will be heard and supported. Love Save Pneumoconiosis foundation has helped 110,000 pneumoconiosis patients in 31 provinces and cities across China.
Being the first female secretary-general of Love Save Pneumoconiosis, the path Dou Lu went through wasn't easy. Her first responsibility is to research and promote the enactment of related policies to ensure the rights of Pneumoconiosis patients. This obligation is crucial as gaps between policy and reality greatly impact the effectiveness in the actual process of enforcement of the law. Policies related to Pneumoconiosis patients developed forty years earlier are still being used, despite striking differences in the thinking processes and definitions of migrant workers' health rights. Thus, in this emergent situation, the right to safety and health should be a right instead of entitlement, and the definitions of occupation-related disease also require updates. Due to the complexity of communicating with officials at all levels, the difficulty of balancing their pursuits and interests of related departments, and the necessity of putting herself in others' shoes to be more persuasive and easy-going, Dou Lu's task is unprecedently hard to accomplish. Nonetheless, with strong faith and unremitting efforts, she quickly found a way to maximize the probability of promoting Pneumoconiosis patients' living conditions by learning from the experience of Hong Kong and other regions. Their experiences show that with an initial monetary investment comes increased attention and a gradual awareness of taking precautions, which in turn, can help workers in addressing medical and livelihood security. Consequently, Dou Lu proposes to establish a special fund for Pneumoconiosis patients.
To achieve this goal, in the course of her public service career, Dou Lu has adopted several strategies such as balancing, regulating, and solving problems directly and tried her best to understand the difficulties from the government's point of view. While conducting upward communication and mediation, Dou Lu never forgets to go back to listen to the voices of people who truly she wants to help, to comfort their depression, feel their loneliness, and seek a practical way to help them by conducting in-depth research to obtain enough data on patients and deeply understanding their needs. While talking about the biggest motivation for persisting in devoting herself to social welfare work, Dou Lu gazes earnestly into the distance, with her fists clenching tightly, "The essence of charity work is to solve social problems," she pauses, continuing with a more serious tone, "Improve the health care system of pneumoconiosis patients can not only help this group but also refine the hidden logic of medical security system behind this small point, seeming like seeing the whole meadow through a single red flower." Dou Lu's concern and actions for the problems arising in the specific context of society will influence the voiceless mineworkers from deep underground and ultimately affect everyone in society.
As a qualified secretary-general, Dou Lu has an unmatched enthusiasm for the cause of pneumoconiosis and the ability to turn plans into reality. At the same time, Dou's unique perspective and rational personality enable her to handle her work easily. However, as one of the few female leaders in the public welfare sector, Dou Lu said she had experienced a lot of prejudice and estrangement; but she is no longer the little girl she was then. Her patience was honed by her position as secretary-general, and now she reveres her own heart and expects the girls to be resolute and uncompromising when the going gets tough.
The stories, alongside thousands and millions of other mile workers, have been buried in dust. Without having adequate compensation, protection, and support for years, we believe that those invisible laborers in China's mines – Pneumoconiosis patients – will ultimately gain their rights and respect through the dedication of people from Dou Lu to all of us, making their laughter, their spirit, their plight, and their contributions been heard around China.