Lou, left, caring her the babies with her husband Li Zin. She would give
them to friends and family after she rescued them
them to friends and family after she rescued them
A woman has been hailed a hero after details of her astonishing work with abandoned children has emerged.
Lou Xiaoying, now 88 and suffering from kidney failure, found and raised more than 30 abandoned Chinese babies from the streets of Jinhua, in the eastern Zhejiang province where she managed to make a living by recycling rubbish.
She and her late husband Li Zin, who died 17 years ago, kept four of the children and passed the others onto friends and family to start new lives.
Her youngest son Zhang Qilin - now aged just seven - was found in a dustbin by Lou when she was 82.
'Even though I was already getting old I could not simply ignore the baby and leave him to die in the trash. He looked so sweet and so needy. I had to take him home with me,' she said.
'I took him back to our home, which is a very small modest house in the countryside and nursed him to health. He is now a thriving little boy, who is happy and healthy.
'My older children all help look after Zhang Qilin, he is very special to all of us. I named him after the Chinese word for rare and precious.
'The whole thing started when I found the first baby, a little girl back in 1972 when I was out collecting rubbish. She was just lying amongst the junk on the street, abandoned. She would have died had we not rescued her and taken her in.
'Watching her grow and become stronger gave us such happiness and I realised I had a real love of caring for children.
'I realised if we had strength enough to collect garbage how could we not recycle something as important as human lives,' she explained.
'These children need love and care. They are all precious human lives. I do not understand how people can leave such a vulnerable baby on the streets.
