NPC deputy overcomes challenges to live a life dedicated to others, Fang Aiqing reports.

UWC Changshu China, the school Wang founded with an IBDP curriculum in Jiangsu province in 2015, has welcomed more than 1,700 students and graduates from 124 countries and regions. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Wang Jiapeng, 41, is an inspirational figure who keeps encouraging people to be, what he describes as, the architect of their own life.

Wang knows how precarious life can be as he was severely injured in an air crash. Despite these injuries, he is a para cross-country skiing champion, founder of one of China's most well-known schools with an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program curriculum and a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress. This is a man who lives life true to his own word.

In 1993, as a result of the crash, he was paralyzed from the waist down and he had to undergo five years of rehabilitation.

But Wang never ceased exploring the possibilities of his body, despite the pain he had to endure.

The winter of 1998-99 saw the 17-year-old regain something that he thought he had lost forever－the exhilaration of skiing on a snow-covered slope, about two kilometers long with a drop of hundreds of meters.

Wang had to use an adapted sit-ski, sitting on a chair attached to a mono-ski and using outriggers for stability. Skiing this way means that the body's center of gravity is much lower than regular skiing, and the speed can exceed that achieved by able-bodied Alpine skiers.

After two weeks of intense training, which saw him continuously fall and roll over, or get thrown into the snow, in March 1999, Wang participated in the Ridderrennet, or the Knight's Race－an annual cross-country ski race for the visually and physically challenged－held in Beitostolen, Norway.

Wang Jiapeng won two gold medals at the Ridderrennet, an annual cross-country ski race for the visually and physically challenged, in Norway in 1999. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

He won two gold medals for China. These were for the men's 10km cross-country skiing and biathlon, which involves cross-country skiing and target shooting.

At that time, Wang was studying with a full scholarship at the United World College Red Cross Nordic in Norway as the school's first student from the Chinese mainland. UWC is an international network with 18 schools and colleges worldwide for students aged 15 to 19 to study an IBDP curriculum.

It all started when his headmaster Tony Macoun asked whether he would like to join his classmates skiing or stay with a host family for Christmas. Wang's answer helped him overcome any psychological barriers concerning the physical challenge. He also learned canoeing there.

His arm strength, accounting for the rapid progress he made in skiing, benefited from frequent swimming during his rehabilitation. He had been with the national swimming team for people with physical challenges for three years. He was proud of his ability to do hundreds of pull-ups at a time.

Wang underwent painstaking rehabilitative training to stand again and to be able to walk with the aid of crutches. In those gloomy adolescent days, without classmates to encourage him, Wang saw the physical exercise as a ray of "sunlight" to relieve psychological pressure.

Queen Sonja of Norway (middle) met Wang and his mother, painter Shen Liping (in white), at the royal palace in 2001. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Education advocate

Dreaming of going back to school, Wang taught himself at the rehabilitation center, despite his demanding physical schedule. Sometimes he read on his stomach while undergoing acupuncture.

To improve his memory, which was also damaged by a brain injury caused by the accident, he recited English words repeatedly until he could remember them by heart. At first, he would forget what he had learned just hours later and had to start all over again the following morning.

In those days, he viewed life like a marathon. No matter how slow he walked, he could make progress every day, and if there were roadblocks, he found a way to negotiate the barriers. His family, therapists, doctors and other patients around him were all his teachers.

With extraordinary perseverance and solid faith in himself, he passed the exam and went to Norway to attend UWC Red Cross Nordic, a life-changing experience as he put it, before completing his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in economics at the University of Oslo.

There, he developed another dream, that of setting up a UWC school on the Chinese mainland to introduce an inclusive, intercultural learning environment and promote mutual understanding between youngsters from various cultures.

Fifteen years after Wang－with just $200 in his pocket－had expressed the idea to Macoun on his graduation day, UWC Changshu China was founded in its namesake city in East China's Jiangsu province in 2015.

Some Sunny Night, a musical adapted from Wang's autobiography, was staged in Oslo in 2004. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

So far, the school has welcomed more than 1,700 students and graduates from 124 countries and regions. It had provided a total scholarship of 280 million yuan ($44 million) for around 700 students by 2021, including those with physical challenges or from disadvantaged backgrounds.

"Love and education are two powerful forces in this world. To me, they can remove the physical and psychological barriers in life," Wang says.

Lyu Shiming, vice-chairman of the China Disabled Persons' Federation, says that Wang has been contributing to the motherland by promoting the well-being of people facing physical challenges.

"He believes that education can change the lives of many young people, as his own experience has proved, therefore he runs schools to exert the great influence of education," Lyu says.

He Chaoxian, a decadelong friend of Wang's, witnessed his battle to open the school, despite repeated setbacks in several other cities of China, and his success when he finally managed to do so in Changshu. Many times, Wang had been close to the finish line, but failed at the last hurdle.

"Few people believed he would succeed," recalls He, adding that apart from his persistence, it was Wang's vision of always taking social well-being into account in pursuit of his own dreams that especially impressed him.

Wang is excellent at encouraging people to work together to create something incredible, He says.

As a parent of a UWC South East Asia graduate, He is working with Wang on a project based on a biomedical technology company called Eosvision. This aims to realize large-scale production of bioregenerative corneas as a solution to insufficient cornea donations and rejections after transplantation.

It's an incubation project of the "UWC+"platform Wang's team and the local government of Changshu launched together to integrate resources of UWC alumni and their parents to promote technological innovation, attract investment and boost the city's development.

Wang is currently in Beijing attending the fifth session of the 13th National People's Congress, which runs until Friday. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

A voice for change

Wang is currently in Beijing attending the fifth session of the 13th National People's Congress, which runs until Friday.

This year, he proposed to refine the classification and grading standard of disabilities, so that people with physical challenges can benefit from more targeted preferential policies and financial assistance from the government.

He also pays attention to the care of elderly people with mental challenges that often lack income and daily life skills, which can burden their family. Wang has proposed building more nursing institutions for these people, which also provide treatment and care for common chronic diseases.

A third proposal of his reflects his observation and advice on introducing high-end talent to join domestic development. He especially attaches importance to the roles of embassies, consulates and social groups, including NGOs, as well as domestic educational institutions with global recognition.

For years, alongside dozens of his fellow deputies, Wang has been promoting legislation for barrier-free environment construction at the national level, and it remains a hot topic this year, especially with the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games taking place at the same time as the NPC.

A Legal Daily report says that the social development affairs committee of the NPC has carried out early-stage research for the legislation, and Lyu, a Standing Committee member of the 13th NPC, told media that, as barrier-free environment construction progresses, local regulations are largely increased and the concept is popularized, it's time to accelerate the legislation.

Moreover, in 2021, Wang had also suggested that the procuratorial organs pay more attention to public welfare lawsuits in this field.

Contact the writer at fangaiqing@chinadaily.com.cn