The primary political task of the whole party and the whole country now and in the near future is to study, disseminate and implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Yangpu District is comprehensively implementing the concept of “a people’s city”, accelerating the construction of the district in an all-round way, and continuously exploring new patterns of city construction with a focus on its key tasks.

At the beginning of 2023, the Publicity Department of the CPC Yangpu District Committee and Yangpu District Integrated Media Center jointly held a seminar on the topic of “Learning, contemplating, understanding and practicing the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the CPC and drawing a new blueprint for development”, and invited the heads of government agencies, civil groups, district state-owned enterprises and party organizations of all sub-districts. The participants studied the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the CPC, exchanged views and explored new ways of development on the basis of their work and the progress of key projects in Yangpu District.

The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC lays out important arrangements for promoting the comprehensive development of programs benefiting people with disabilities in the new era, and clearly states that “For people with disabilities, we will improve the social security and service systems and promote all-around development of related programs”, bringing hope to families of people with disabilities and pointing out the direction of future development.

Providing political guidance for programs benefiting people with disabilities (2023)

By now, a welfare system for people with disabilities has been established in China, including living and nursing subsidies for people with disabilities and rehabilitation subsidies for children with disabilities, to enhance the happiness of people with disabilities.

Making the lives of people with disabilities more enjoyable. In recent years, Yangpu District Disabled Persons’ Federation (hereafter as the Federation) has focused on improving assistance for people with disabilities in five major areas including life, health care, rehabilitation, education and employment, worked hard to build a “great assistance” pattern, and provided “targeted assistance” to make policies and systems aimed for people with disabilities more powerful. In practice, we have a strong feeling that the leadership of the party is the fundamental guarantee for the continous development of programs benefiting people with disabilities and the accelerated improvement of their conditions, and the greatest political advantage for doing a good job in work related to people with disabilities.

Yangpu District Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Persons in the Kongjiang branch of the First Rehabilitation Hospital

In recent years, Yangpu District has been actively building a three-level rehabilitation service network. To expand rehabilitation space, the 1,000-square-meter Yangpu District Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Persons in the Kongjiang branch of the First Rehabilitation Hospital was put into operation. To improve rehabilitation services, community health centers in 12 sub-districts established rehabilitation sub-centers and stations for people with disabilities with the help of family doctor workstations. With a focus on early rehabilitation, treatment and disability prevention for key groups such as people suffering from chest pain, hip fractures and autism, it strives to combine medicine and rehabilitation. On this basis, the Federation will plan a new round of rehabilitation system construction in 2023, with a focus on expanding beneficiary groups, launching new rehabilitation projects and improving rehabilitation effectiveness, so as to promote the rehabilitation of people with disabilities and improve their life quality.

Making disabled persons’ sense of happiness stronger. Yangpu District People’s Government launches a series of caring and practical projects every year. This year, there are three practical projects that are closely related to people with disabilities: construction of two new community health centers (stations) for people with disabilities, free physical examinations for 300 severely disabled people who are in need but unable to travel, and barrier-free reconstruction for homes of 365 families of people with disabilities.

By far, Yangpu District has established six sports rehabilitation and health centers for people with disabilities to expand sports and life service circles for them within 15 minutes’ reach. This year, the Federation will carry out free physical examinations and barrier-free reconstruction to make disabled persons’ sense of fulfillment, happiness and security stronger and more continuous.

Striving to answer questions concerning people’s wellbeing (2023)

The report of the 20th National Congress of the CPC emphasizes the importance of “improving the people’s wellbeing and raising quality of life”. The people’s wellbeing is connected to public support, and improving the people’s wellbeing is the fundamental purpose of development.

Lighting up a wonderful life with employment. The Federation insists on promoting employment according to individual conditions and works very hard to help people with disabilities find jobs. Last year, skill training, job fairs and employment policy promotions aimed for people with disabilities were carried out online due to the epidemic. The Federation actively made visits to relevant enterprises, found out the conditions of disabled persons who lost their jobs because of the epidemic, tried to formulate assistance measures and promoted job development.

In addition, the Federation actively explored new ways to promote the employment of people with disabilities and increase their income, and promoted integrated vocational training and employment services. It established an intangible cultural heritage base for people with disabilities of Yangpu District, developed relevant workshops, carried out livestreaming and showed people how to sell products by livestreaming. By making use of the resources of Shanghai Open University and social organizations, the Federation promoted the cultural and creative base project for people with disabilities in order to drive employment and entrepreneurship.

Yangpu District Intangible Cultural Heritage Base for Disabled Persons

To enhance employment of people with disabilities, the Federation will study the circumstances of the times, understand new market trends and meet new needs of people with disabilities. To help them get better jobs and start a wonderful life, the Federation will establish more regulations, take advantage of favorable conditions, innovate relevant mechanisms, spare no effort to open up employment channels for people with disabilities and continuously improve their living conditions.

Making efforts to meet the diverse needs of persons with disabilities. The Federation is an organization of the party and a bridge that connects the party and the government to people with disabilities. The Federation takes a firm political stance, implements a people-centered development philosophy, makes clear the era it is in, the cause it is engaged in and the responsibilities it shoulders, and strives to address problems and concerns for people with disabilities. Every year, the Federation visits people with disabilities, finds out the things that are troubling them, learns their diverse needs, and takes concrete measures to let them live a happy life.

This year is the third year of the implementation of the “14th Five-Year Plan”. While implementing key plans such as the comprehensive improvement of rehabilitation services and the construction of Yangpu District Comprehensive Activity Center for Disabled Persons, the Federation will strive to do a good job in work relate to the people’s wellbeing. To enhance the risk resistance ability of people with disabilities, optimize assistive device adaptation services, increase the coverage of public services for them and promote disability prevention and rehabilitation publicity, the Federation will adhere to the work evaluation mechanism oriented by the awareness, participation and satisfaction of people with disabilities, protect their rights and interests, create good living conditions for them to live in peace, harmony and equality, and strive to contribute to the layout of the four areas in Yangpu District by shouldering new responsibilities and taking new actions.

Working together to build a better Yangpu (2023)

The riverside is the core area for the implementation of the concept of a people’s city. Last year, in accordance with the general idea of “guidelines first, improvement and optimization, information empowerment and social integration”, Yangpu District made every effort to promote the construction of the Riverside Barrier-free Innovation Demonstration Zone, issued the Guidelines for the Construction of a Barrier-free Environment in Yangpu Riverside Public Space and promoted barrier-free access to facilities, information and services.

In terms of barrier-free facilities, Yangpu District carried out renovation of facilities in the demonstration section from Huaide Road to Minghua Sugar Factory, completed barrier-free renovation of ramps and public toilets in the section, renovated low-level immediate drinking water facilities, increased the number of wheelchair parking space signs, handrails and barrier-free parking spaces, and optimized the distribution of parking spaces for vehicles for people with disabilities. In terms of barrier-free access to information, it launched the Yangpu Riverside Public Space barrier-free information access project, completed the development of software and hardware such as applet audio guides and outdoor LED screens, and designed intelligent information services to meet the needs of people with disabilities, the elderly and other groups. In terms of barrier-free access to services, it built the Sunshine Comprehensive Service Center in Green Hill, connected seven party member and non-party member service stations along the riverside and the people’s city exhibition hall to form a chain service system, added barrier-free services at each station and established a demonstration site of Riverside Sunshine Health Station so as to provide convenience and create a nice barrier-free environment for people with disabilities.

Construction of Yangpu Riverside Public Space Barrier-Free Innovation Demonstration Zone

On March 1, 2023, the Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on the Construction of a Barrier-Free Environment came into effect to further promote the construction of a barrier-free environment in a legalized, systematic and refined way. Taking this as an opportunity, the Federation will accurately understand the new requirements for the project.

When implementing the concept of a people’s city, the Federation will continue to build a barrier-free and friendly environment in the riverside to realize barrier-free connection of the 15.5-kilometer-long shoreline, further upgrade Yangpu Riverside Comprehensive Service Center for Disabled Persons and turn the riverside into an urban “living room” that can be accessed, joined and shared by people with disabilities.

Last year, the Federation promoted the barrier-free connection of the demonstration section in the riverside, which was not limited to elimination of physical barriers. It also strove to achieve friendliness to, participation of and sharing by the whole population, and let the results reflect the needs of people with disabilities for future life scenarios. During the construction, the Federation asked representatives of people with disabilities to conduct survey on the construction of a barrier-free environment in the riverside and collected 83 suggestions, many of which were adopted later.

Guided by the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the CPC, the Federation will join hands with all parties to share the responsibility of building a barrier-free environment. The construction of a barrier-free environment requires the participation of the whole society. The Federation will extensively strengthen publicity, adopt good suggestions from all parties, expand the scope of construction, increase the number of beneficiaries, turn the “patch” thinking into the “system” thinking, enable the high-quality construction of a barrier-free environment, meet the needs of a wider range of people with better supplies, display humanity and human touch in urban governance and jointly build a happy life for people with disabilities.