ZHAO Yu’nao, who’s blind, has to face a challenging situation every day — delivering meals for her husband at a barber’s shop in Nanyao Village in central China’s Henan Province.

She has to cross a main road where there’s a constant stream of vehicles, especially trucks. However, every time Zhao, who’s in her 50s, arrives at the intersection, someone comes to escort her to the destination.

This is not a random act of kindness from a stranger, but a member of the Giving A Helping Hand association in Sanxiamen City, according to Fazhi Wanbao (The Mirror) newspaper.

Their job: When members see elderly people, children and the handicapped having trouble crossing streets, they offer help. And if someone falls, they pick them up and call an ambulance.

And, extremely important to members, the association takes financial responsibility in the case of claims that the group member caused the accident. This follows a number of high-profile cases where Good Samaritans have been falsely accused by the people they aided.

Founded more than a year ago, the association now has more than 2,000 members in Sanxiamen.

“In the past, if we saw an elderly person fall in the street, we were too frightened to give support as it might lead to disputes. But now we have the association to back us up, there is nothing to worry about,” Ren Daoxin, 58, a number of the association in Nanyao Village, tells the newspaper.

Ren’s fear can be traced to the “Peng Yu Effect.” That refers to a case in November 2006 when an elderly woman fell and broke her leg at a bus stop in Nanjing, capital city of Jiangsu Province.

A young man, Peng Yu, helped her and escorted her to hospital. Later, the women sued Peng and claimed that he had knocked her over.

Reluctant to be Samaritans

While there were conflicting accounts over responsibility, the woman won damages of almost 46,000 yuan (US$7,500) with the court ruling that the fact that Peng remained at the hospital to see that she was alright indicated his guilt.

The verdict stated that “according to what one would normally do in this case,” Peng would have left soon after taking the woman to the hospital instead of staying for the surgical check. “His behavior obviously went against common sense.”

Afterward, many people became reluctant to be Good Samaritans.

In January, the social investigation center of the China Youth Daily, an official daily newspaper of Communist Youth League of China, conducted an online poll of 139,000 people on whether they would help a senior who had fallen on the street. Only 5.4 percent said that they would offer help right away. More than half of participants said they would ignore the scene.

“When people start to think about whether or not to help when an old person falls, it suggests that there is something wrong with social ethics,” says sociologist Bian Shaobin from Shandong University.

Last month, an elderly man died on the street in the center of Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province. He had been lying on the street for 10 hours before someone called the police.

The case is not exceptional.

A video that received many hits recently told of a man surnamed Zhang who saw an elderly woman lying on the road as he drove to visit his mother. As his car was not equipped with a “black box” that includes a dashboard camera that would show he was not involved in any incident, Zhang chose to drive on.

When Zhang arrived at his mother’s place, he was told that his mother had gone earlier alone to his home.

Zhang had a bad hunch and rushed to the scene where he’s seen the elderly woman. It turned out it was his mother. Zhang called an ambulance, but it was too late to save her.

However, now Sanxiamen City is a place where “people won’t be worried about falling,” according to many tourists and residents.

Since April 2014, no one has died as a result of a car accident in Nanyao Village, according to Song Jianfang, head of the village. Song is also a member of the association.

Yang Shaochun, 57, founder of Giving A Helping Hand, conceived the organization in 2009.

“At the time, my wife and I were working in Beijing. One day she told me that she had fainted in a Metro station. I rushed to there and found that two kind men had already escorted her to hospital,” he tells The Mirror.

Yang was touched. “I swore that in future I would give a helping hand immediately and encourage more people to do the same thing,” he adds.

While he told friends about his idea for an association, he took the plan no further.

Four years later, when Yang was accompanying his parents to Hainan Island, they saw a man lying still on the beach for two hours with no one coming to his aid.

“My mother was upset and blamed me and asked: ‘Where is the association to help people you were talking about’?”

Last year, on a local online forum of Sanxiamen, Yang finally made up his mind and announced the establishment of the Giving a Helping Hand association.

Financial support

At first, there were only 25 members and they officially hung on the sign of the association in a small courtyard of Heima Village, Lushi County.

To offer reassurance in the event of compensation claims, Yang has promised to mortgage his home if necessary.

“My monthly income is around 8,000 yuan and I have two properties worth 700,000 yuan in total. My wife doesn’t have a job but she is good at investing in stocks,” says Yang, adding that though they are not rich but have enough for a family in Lushi County.

And that gives him the faith to support the association.

During the first year, Yang admits that he has faced situations of blackmail.

“But these are very rare cases. One of our members in the association has calculated that the chance to be blamed is one in 10,000. We have almost nothing to worry when helping,” he believes.

New members must be recommended by old members and every newcomer is trained before joining the association officially. Now it not only focuses on helping people but on how to give the most efficient aid.

Doctor Niu Aijun, a member of Giving A Helping Hand, gives lectures to members on different helping scenarios: checking if people who fall are lucid; ensuring that they are not moved if they may have broken bones or show signs of a stroke or heart attack.

Yang admits that he never expected the association to grow so rapidly. Now the 2,100 numbers can cover every district and county of Sanxiamen City. There are even supporting groups in Xi’an, Ruyang, Shangzhou and elsewhere.

This rapid development has brought Yang financial burden. “Last year I spent 100,000 yuan of my own to support the association,” he says.

Costs have included everything from printing name cards to holding events with hundreds of participants.

As Yang can’t afford to foot all these costs, he and other managers of the association decided to open a trading company. The firm has been registered and is about to run.

“I won’t worry about people criticizing the association, claiming we’re making money under the guise of charity,” he says.

“When the Giving a Helping Hand association becomes stronger as a result of the money generated, the facts will scotch suspicions,” says one of the investors in the company.

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