Luo Xiao Yuan is the consummate employee. She’s bright, friendly, assertive and knows the Bethel school campus, where she works, like the back of her hand.

But that’s only to be expected given that Luo, who also goes by her English name, Christina, grew up there. Bethel is a school and orphanage on the outskirts of Beijing which specializes in caring for vision impaired and autistic children. Like most of the other residents, Christina is blind and was sent to Bethel to receive the specialized care the orphanage where she lived in Hunan could not provide. Students who grow too old for school can work at the Bethel campus, receiving professional training they may not have had access to otherwise.

This sustainable model of teaching practical skills is an increasing trend among Beijing businesses and organizations working with people with disabilities. It’s a remarkable movement, considering people with disabilities faced seemingly insurmountable challenges in traditional Chinese society.

“Twenty years ago when you talked about it, people would say, ‘Why are you bothering? They’re not really people,’” says Deborah Bickler, country director for Handicap International. “They’ve made incredible progress.”

Bickler tells us that as of 2006, there were officially 83 million people in China living with some form of disability. Steps are being taken to address their needs, but what she and others at Handicap International seek to do is change attitudes—shifting perceptions of the impaired from one of charity and pity, to one of recognition of value and their right to support. “There’s a tendency to want to make decisions for them,” Bickler says. “We need to try to work with people, instead of for people.”

At Bread of Life Bakery, seven young Chinese women defy skeptics every day. Despite ailments such as cerebral palsy and osteogenesis imperfecta—brittle bone disease—they crank out Western baked goods such as apple pie and cinnamon rolls and deliver them throughout Beijing. The idea is that they will develop professional skills and training that they can later leverage for a job outside the bakery.

Cheri Borkholder, a volunteer at the bakery and the Agape orphanage, where the women and younger impaired orphans live, says university students often come to volunteer and that they have generated interest from locals and foreigners alike who are impressed with the women’s work.

The Bread of Life staff gets paid for each day they work in the bakery, and some have already moved on. One landed a new job; another recently married.

“We’re just a building block,” Borkholder says. “We’re not planning on keeping these girls forever. We’re just providing them with the right training.”

Most of these organizations are either founded or co-founded by foreigners, though the ultimate goal for all is to help their students, trainees and patients integrate into society, and live rich, productive lives. Crazy Bake works closely with adults living with physical and mental impairments, teaching them baking and business skills that allow them to create and sell a product, and gain self-confidence and independence in the process.

The Special Commune helps train intellectually impaired youths in animal welfare, land or food management, art and performance or office work, and later facilitates opportunities to intern at or work with local companies. Hui Ling, whose Beijing branch was founded in 2000, supports group homes for those with mental disabilities, as well as provides vocational training, including producing handicrafts that they sell for a profit. Hui Ling is located down a small hutong alley near the Forbidden City in an effort to bring “trainees” and the community closer together.

For Bickler, maintaining a big picture approach, that covers not only medical resources and rehabilitation, but also vocational training and job placement, is the key to success. To promote this way of thinking, Bickler helped organize a photography exhibit that put the idea that people with disabilities can’t do for themselves on its head.

“EmployAbility,” which opened at the Sofitel Wanda Beijing on Dec. 2, the International Day of Persons With Disabilities, is an exhibition of photographs by Sun Zhiyuan, who is vision impaired. Zhiyuan photographed seven subjects, all individuals in Beijing who live with some form of disability, going about their daily business. They include a deaf graphic designer, a singer, a composer, a teacher and a wheelchair user, and the head of a small organization who has no arms.

It’s a progressive outlook these organizations are taking, and a humane one as well. In many instances, those living with disabilities have extraordinary strengths and talents that far outshine their impairments, if only they’ve been given the chance to show it. “It’s about ignoring the disability, and focusing on what they have,” Bickler says.