Zihan is a 17-year-old from China and is the founder of the Eastern Star Adaptive Skating program. She is an 11th-grader at the High School Affiliated with Renmin University of China. While she was living in Buffalo, NY, for middle school, she participated in the Gliding Star Adaptive Skating program for more than a year and was deeply inspired. After the COVID-19 breakout in 2021, she returned to China and decided to initiate a program that supported people with disabilities participating in sports in China. Due to national conditions like the lack of funding, sociocultural discrimination, low prevalence of the public for people with disabilities, and the skepticism towards a high school student's ability as the program head, the whole process of founding her program was difficult. Nevertheless, she persisted and succeeded in activating the project in July, 2022. Zihan hopes to expand the impact and influence of her project and help more people with disabilities in China and around the world receive the help they need to participate in sports and enhance both their physical and mental prowess.
Zihan noticed a lack of public attention devoted to adapted sports programs and a general societal prejudice against the community of people who have developmental and intellectual disabilities. Currently, the disabilities community in China, though with a huge population of eighty million people, is often excluded from social activities including sports, recreation, etc. The Eastern Star program wishes to change the status quo and offer more accessible sports resources to them.
Zihan will need to identify venues to host skating activities at, and recruit volunteers/skating coaches to staff these events. Zihan is aware that skiers may need special facilitating equipment, the volunteers will customize individual aids for each person and design skating aids in accordance to the participants individual needs. Zihan also aims to raising money for the program by promoting her project to the public.
Zihan wants her athletes to feel the joy of sport in the adaptive skating program. She hopes that the presence of people with disabilities at the ice rink will continue to make more people aware of the diversity of society and will help reduce public prejudice and call for equality for those with intellectual disabilities. Lastly, Zihan expects and hopes to inspire more people in her community to develop more sports programs for diverse populations.