Stuart James has never been one for pity parties.

Born with Osteogenesis imperfecter, more commonly called brittle-bone disease, James has been confined to a wheelchair since he was small, but never defined by it.

"If you think about yourself that way, you live your life as a victim," says James. The 20-year veteran of sports and entertainment marketing had a different image of himself.

The native New Yorker concedes he was lucky to reach the age of 5 in the very year that the Americans With Disabilities Act went into effect. That meant public schools had to take him in, though they weren't always completely ready. But James had the confidence to cope with any obstacles, he says. Despite his wheelchair and small stature, even bullying was never a real problem.

"But when he came to China," says his British friend Ian Charles Stuart, who manages China's America's Cup sailing team with James, "he found that there were very few people like him - people in wheelchairs that were living ordinary lives, that were going to university, going to work, doing all the things that he took for granted".

Accessibility was just one issue. "There were concerns and doubts about how easily people could integrate into life here," Stuart says.

Changing those perceptions often means shifting the mindset of the child, the parents and the community - starting with the wheelchair.

"One day I went to speak to a group of people with different disabilities," James says, "and as the auditorium filled up I was amazed to see people literally carrying in children. 'Where are the wheelchairs?' I asked."

Wheelchairs in China, he soon found, were big, clumsy and expensive. Most were hospital-style models, "designed to make it easy for someone else to push them around", he says.

Nobody pushes James around, and he was eager to make that possible for Chinese people, especially children. James and Stuart started Wheels Plus Wings, and began importing well-designed, lightweight, durable, child-driven wheelchairs "that even kids can drive", James says. But it's not just a matter of bestowing such independence on youngsters. He notes: "You have to convince the parents it will work, and then schools, and then employers.

"We can't help every child in China," says Stuart. "So we find children with a certain level of get-up-and-go, a certain level of can-do attitude in the way they think about their lives, and find ways to help them."

The group recently got wheelchairs for two young girls with spinal-cord injuries. "Both girls said they missed being able to dance," Stuart says. "So we invited a well-known ballerina from China to give them a dance class with their parents in attendance. That was lots of fun - not just for the children but for the parents to see their daughters laugh and play, something that I think hadn't happened for a year since the accidents."

A big part of the mission is education.

Stuart notes that he happens to need glasses to read. "That doesn't make me any less interested in reading, or any less good a student," he says. "So it's a question of perception. The chair should be irrelevant."

Stuart says China's public school sector has more infrastructure for such children than people realize.

"There are a number of schools in the Beijing area that are perfectly accessible," he says. "There are ramps, in some cases lifts, classroom doors are wide enough, there are disabled toilet facilities." But even in those schools, he says, there isn't a single disabled child attending.

In the past, one reason was that headmasters and teachers were judged on the basis of their students' success. "Many of the schools used that as an excuse - that having a disabled child was more difficult and would hurt their ratings.

"That rating system was changed about two years ago - but there is also an incorrect perception that society still needs to address: Just because a child is physically disabled doesn't mean they are mentally not competent. Nor does it mean they won't study."

"It's really the telling of that story that's important to us."

(China Daily 11/14/2013 page20)