ZYL Rare Diseases Caring Center
ZYL Rare Diseases Caring Center is devoted to making a real social impact for rare diseases patients in local communities in three focus areas: vocational training (education), confidence building (mental health promotion) and business development. It envisions a society where every rare disease patient is empowered to get proper employment.
Cheryl Gui
P&G Alumni Grant Champion
Cheryl Gui
20 years in Brand Management/Executive Management in Guangzhou.
Cheryl has been involved with ZYL for 10 years. Since 2021, Cheryl has been on the Board and more recently has become the Honorary Vice Chair. She wears a number of hats that include program development and coordination, young volunteers training, logistics management, and grant writing. Cheryl has helped ZYL Caring Center’s fund-raising activities and secured over US$5000, and like-kind donations of US$1000. She has organized 200+ volunteers to help the Rare Diseases Group.
In January of this year and as one of the key leaders of the ZYL Public Welfare Communication Performance Services Program, Cheryl successfully planned and organized the Disabled Persons/Healthy People performance show that included the ‘Spark Choir’ group of disabled singers. It was held in the very busy Metro (rail) station in Guangzhou. The aim of the show was to help connect the disabled and the healthy, building public awareness of the skills and capacities of those who are disabled while giving them a confidence boost .
In her support memo Cheryl writes: “I have been involved with ZYL since 2014. The more I learned about ZYL’s programs, their donors, and their self-sustaining model, the more I wanted to do more for this special magic group. Their hard work in fighting for those with rare diseases and their efforts to change pessimistic thinking to happiness has always touched me a lot. ZYL is a magic team.”
In 2020, the ZYL Caring Center launched a professional Digital Marketing studio with associated video and sound recording hardware/software capacity. This initiative offers rare disease patients and disabled persons the opportunity to learn the vocational skills associated with recording hardware and software, shooting, digital marketing skills, etc. Over a 12 month period, ZYL will conduct 12 training sessions (each lasting 5 days), and organize at least one or two monthly music video/music development activities with 1-to-1 tutoring onsite. The program will also include practical internship opportunities for trainees in real public welfare work projects, as well as mentoring and networking opportunities for participants.
The PGAF grant of $13,000 will contribute to the training of as many as 150 disabled persons/rare diseases patients, and impact as many as 1000-5000 family/community members via its on-line presence. Grant funds will pay for trainers who facilitate the workshops and training sessions, specialists who oversee the training programs with disabled persons, Internship expenses, logistics expenses, and related media production material expenses.
Xian, a 28 year old hemophiliac who is permanently disabled and unable to walk, taught himself. the basic skills of video production at home. Seeking more opportunities, he applied to the ZYL training held in Nov. 2021. After spending about a year in the program, during which he occasionally took on some flexible low-pay work, Xian finally mastered all the professional skills needed for digital marketing and documentary film production. Once finished, ZYL helped him find work in Digital Marketing/documentary film production at a public welfare organization where he now earns RMB3000(US$415) per month, enabling him to live independently.