ZeShan Foundation attaches great importance to mental and physical health.

The Foundation is developing a proactive giving program for initiatives that tackle illnesses causing widespread suffering and deaths of children, and is particularly concerned with the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis B in China.

The Foundation supports a program that screens pregnant women in central China for HIV/AIDS and intervenes to prevent the transmission of virus from mother to child. The project was initiated by Dr. David Ho, the world-renowned pioneer of HIV/AIDS treatment. The Foundation also supports a not-for-profit organization in Fuyang, Anhui Province, which cares for around 500 youngsters affected by HIV/AIDS, including many orphans and children infected with the virus.

                                                               ZeShan's chair Laura Chen visiting youngsters orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Fuyang. From left to right: Dr. David Ho. Ms Chen, Kathrine Meyers and Conley Brooks Jr.

The Foundation has also established a partnership with the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University and the China Foundation for Hepatitis Prevention and Control to provide Hepatitis B vaccination for school children in China. Completed in 2007, the program provided immunization for 56,000 children in Hainanzhou, Qinghai Province, and had expanded to benefit all children in Qinghai having attracted other sources of donation upon the success of the pilot program funded by ZeShan.

In 2003 the Foundation supported a “peer education” program where freshmen from the Shanghai Second Medical University educated secondary students about HIV/AIDS and ways to prevent it. The program received recognition from the Shanghai Education Commission, with some of its teaching materials being incorporated into the local curriculum while a center was set up to offer training to secondary teachers. The success of the program was shared with participants at the Tsinghua AIDS/SARS Summit in that same year, which was partly funded by the Foundation and which invited former US President Bill Clinton as the keynote speaker.

Currently, we are supporting Vancouver-based BC Children’s Hospital's training programs for young pediatricians from China. The programs, which are carried out in both Fudan University's children's hospital, China, and the Vancouver hospital, focus on emergency medicine and infectious disease management.

                                                               ZeShan’s former executive director Ho Wai-chi and Dr. Samuel So of Stanford University in a photo with children who have benefited from the Foundation’s Hepatitis B vaccination program.