Yu Xukang, 40, gets up every morning in Yibin County, in southwestern China, and has done the same thing for years: he carries his 12-year-old son Xiao Qiang in an improvised basket on his back, and walks.
It is not a short walk. It is nearly 28 kilometers round trip to Fengxi Primary School, in the city of Fengyi. Before finding that school, several institutions turned his son away because of his physical disability. Xiao Qiang has no cognitive problems; he only needs someone to take him to the classroom. And that someone is his father.
Yu Xukang has raised his son alone since the boy was 3 years old, when his wife left. Nine years later, he still walks every day without complaining, because for him, educating his son is not an option: it is the only one.
