IN 1999 veteran Taipei-based journalist Zhang Pingyi set off on what she thought would be her last assignment, a powerful story about leper colonies in the mountains of southwest China. Afterward she would retire and devote herself to her family, her two sons and her physician husband, or so she thought.

But the helpless children of Dayingpan Village - then a "ghost village" of around 130 people - changed her life and that of the villagers. For both of them, it was a profound change for the better.

For the past 12 years, Zhang has dedicated her life to helping the "ghost" villagers and their children, many of them not infected or contagious but cruelly stigmatized. Accurate information about leprosy is very limited and folk superstition prevails in many remote areas.

Today she is still helping that village on Mt Liangshan, its population around 1,000, most of them uninfected and healthy, the offspring of the original sufferers. She funded the first access road, built a primary school and a middle school with money she raised. She has taught basic health and hygiene to children who didn't know how to brush their teeth. She works in the fields and helps in the school kitchen. She also helps find jobs for young villagers at her brother's factory in Qingdao, Shandong Province. At the school, she put in a solar-powered hot water supply so children could bathe at least once a week.

"What I saw when I first arrived 12 years ago is not the life they deserved," Zhang said. "I am a mother. I could not leave them alone when I saw them for the first time."

Zhang was in Shanghai on a private visit to see friends, and she took time out to discuss her experiences with Shanghai Daily.

She has also written a book about her work with leprosy patients, "A Taiwan Woman Climbs Mt Liangshan," published early this year in Taiwan. It is illustrated with numerous photographs showing the transformation of the village and its people.

For many years, Dayingpan was cut off by mountains, cliffs and raging torrents. It lies on Mt Liangshan in Sichuan Province, on the border with Yunnan Province in China's southwest region.

China has around 200,000 leprosy patients, including 120,000 seriously affected or disabled. Around 20,000 patients live in mostly remote villages. About 2,000 new cases are reported each year, mostly in undeveloped areas in the southwest and southeast regions.

Leprosy (Hansen's disease) is highly infectious, but can be treated and cured with antibiotics. After only a week or two of treatment, patients are no longer infectious. There is no need for isolation and quarantine. The incubation period is often long, so early detection is essential. It is probably transmitted by respiratory droplets in its early stages, but is not transmitted sexually, as previously believed.

Back in 1999 Zhang joined a group of missionaries visiting leper villages dotted in mountainous areas in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. Her articles and photos would be a moving conclusion to her 12 years of journalism, which was known for going to the heart of sensitive issues, such as HIV-AIDS, and writing human-interest stories.

The residents of impoverished Dayingpan village were mostly ethnic Yi people and they were virtually invisible, receiving scant medical care.

"Most people with leprosy were traditionally believed to be ghosts," Zhang said. "They moved to this village from nearby villages. They were abandoned by their families and lived in self-imposed exile."

She was greeted by a nightmarish scene that had been going on for many years. She saw faces twisted and limbs devoured by the disease. Many people were blind. Some crawled on the ground, leaving traces of blood behind them. Some yelled desperately for pain killers as they lay in filthy beds.

But there were quite a few healthy people, including uninfected children living in appalling conditions in mud and straw houses, without water or electricity. It could have been a scene of life hundreds of years ago.

Children mostly naked, played in the mud or played with small animals. Clothes were ragged or nonexistent. No one bathed. The place was flea-infested and foul-smelling.Back when she arrived, the village did not appear on any map. It was a place people tried to forget. Local authorities provided limited assistance and health care, said Zhang.

"The adult villagers were citizens and documented patients, but their children who born in the village, though they were healthy, did not exist officially (they were not given hukou or residence certificates). Thus, there was no extra food ration for them, only the quota for the adult patients," Zhang said.

"The children, the second or even third generation of the leprosy patients, had to survive on limited food set aside by adults - their only means of survival."

The local government had set up a primary school in the village in 1987, but it was a failure. Though leprosy was curable, most people didn't believe it. People still believed the patients were ghosts and their children and those who living with them would spread the disease.

Despite comparatively high pay, some teachers quit and most children at Dayingpan gave up schooling at an early age because acquiring knowledge seemed useless.

From then on, the mother of two devoted herself to a much larger family of suffering people, going back and forth across the Taiwan Strait.

The first road linking Dayingpan and the outside world was completed just a few months after Zhang's visit. She paid for it herself.

She taught the kids how to brush their teeth and wash themselves. Back in Taiwan, she raised money for the village.

Some tycoons, who were known for their philanthropy, immediately refused to help when Zhang told them about the village of leprosy patients and healthy children. But she still raised enough money to build a new primary school; the old abandoned school was dilapidated.

Zhang also invited media cross the strait to visit the village and report on the conditions. The local government responded swiftly and improved the living conditions. It also gave the children official identities, so there were no longer hungry "ghosts" without food rations.

The children studied hard and earned high scores. They became healthy and strong thanks to medical care and nutritious food provided by the school kitchen where Zhang worked as a part-time cook.

In 2005, 18 years after the government built the first primary school that went unused, Dayingpan finally had its first batch of primary school graduates.

Though more and more children overcame many obstacles and completed primary school, they were denied admission to middle schools outside the village. "The reason was the same, bias deeply rooted in local people's minds," said Zhang.

Zhang again argued with local authorities to allow qualified students to attend other local schools. When they resisted, she built her own middle school next to the primary school in Dayingpan, and the local government agreed to recognize it. Other young people attend a nearby high school.

She felt exhausted after battling ignorance and bias.

"I was asked if there were any high school graduates at Dayingpan," said Zhang. "I promised it would happen someday, but that's not the point. I hope the children can be happy farmers with a primary school education, or happy workers if they finish high school. Though they are qualified and deserve it, my greatest concern is wether they will be able to lead a normal life like us and earn a living with their own hands," she said.

Speaking of the young factory workers at her brother's plant in Qingdao, she said, "It was their first time to leave home, to take a flight, to show their ID cards, and it was the first time to run on a sandy beach - so many 'firsts'."

Remembering the past decade, Zhang couldn't find the words to explain her bravery in persisting with her mission. One influential media outlet called her "a mad woman fighting for the children of Dayingpan."

"I don't like the way they described me," Zhang said. "I just did what I thought I should do. I wish more people, especially young people, would join the campaign to help people, not only as volunteers, but as full-time professionals."

Zhang told Shanghai Daily she has decided to retire from the frontline and hopes to spend more time guiding followers in her mission, but not too many.

"I'm not almighty God. If a successor doesn't come, I have no choice but to stay on and I'm getting too tired."

Some media have compared Zhang with Chen Guangbiao, the billionaire philanthropist known for passing out money on the street and pledging to donate his fortune to charity after his death. He was nicknamed Brother Biao by the media.

"What Brother Biao did, such as giving cash to the poor, calls to mind the old Chinese saying, 'One may give financial aid to others in an emergency, but should not do so if they are perennially in need of money'," Zhang said.

"I'd like to exchange views with Brother Biao and perhaps he could pay more attention to specific areas of need."

Zhang says that she herself is always grateful for what life has given her, especially the opportunity to help others.

Facts about leprosy

Leprosy is an ancient contagious scourge, notorious for its disfigurement if left untreated. But as long as the disease is identified quickly, treatment with antibiotics - as little as a week or two - renders the patient noninfectious. Leprosy can be cured with a one- to two-year regimen with three different drugs. If untreated, it is fatal.

Isolation and "leper colonies" are not necessary.

Early detection is essential, but many people do not recognize their white skin lesions for what they are early enough and, as a result, suffer lifelong nerve damage. There is a long incubation period but when symptoms appear, it is highly infectious.

Leprosy attacks the nervous system, especially the extremities, and can be very dehabilitating. Patients are susceptible to other ailments and injuries since their extremities are numb, but leprosy itself does not cause limbs to fall off.

Leprosy is not transmitted sexually, as was once believed, or through casual contact. It is generally believed to be transmitted by respiratory droplets.

Tens of millions of people live with leprosy worldwide, many of them disfigured and impaired because of lack of treatment. The most cases occur in South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa. China has controlled the disease but it has not been eradicated anywhere in the world. It mostly occurs in underdeveloped areas in the southwest, south and southeast.

China has reported around 200,000 reported cases of leprosy on the mainland, including 120,000 patients with serious physical impairments. Around 20,000 of them live in isolated communities. Around 2,000 new cases are reported every year.