Love helps brave Yifan to beat handicap

A special bond exists between Xia Yifan, 14, and her school that will not be weakened by the passing of time or diminished by the challenges she and her classmates face in the years and decades to come.

Now in her third year at the Middle School of Suiling Forestry Bureau, Yifan has been taught far more than what appears in books or on the blackboard and in many ways has been an educator herself.

Yifan was born in Suihua, a city in Heilongjiang province, with congenital spina bifida, hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain) and a cleft palate.