At the venue of an exhibition on “Hansen’s Disease, Art and Culture”
(Guangzhou, July 2019)

China has around 600 villages that are home to some 20,000 persons affected by Hansen’s disease. The villages are located in remote areas and their inhabitants are mostly elderly and handicapped and it is quite difficult for them to live independently.

HANDA(HANDA Rehabilitation & Welfare Association)was established in 1996 and has been supported by Sasakawa Health Foundation since its inception. Operating mainly in Guangdong, Yunnan and Guangxi, where most of these villages are located, HANDA is involved in a wide range of activities for persons affected by Hansen’s disease. These include economic support, educational support, making improvements to living environments, vocational training, awareness-raising and history preservation, all with a view to realizing a society free from discrimination toward Hansen’s disease.

In fiscal 2019, HANDA’s activities included study sessions for the maintenance of good health, visits to villages by volunteers and exchanges with residents, cataract examinations, provision of prosthetic legs, and the collection and preservation of items and testimonies of persons affected by Hansen’s disease.

By directly involving persons affected in the running of the organization as board members, HANDA carries out activities centered on their needs, while also welcoming as directors socially influential individuals who agree with HANDA’s philosophy, thus enabling the development of a wide range of activities.

Among these was an exhibition on “Hansen’s Disease, Art and Culture” in which several famous artists took part. This was an event that only HANDA—made up of both persons affected by Hansen’s disease and their supporters—could have organized, and the Art Space section featuring painting and calligraphy by persons affected drew a lot of interest.

In seeking to improve the living conditions of an elderly population of persons affected by Hansen’s disease living in isolated villages, while looking to raise awareness and preserve the history of the disease for posterity so that people do not repeat the mistakes of the past, the work being carried out by HANDA is very important.