As this year's G20 Summit approaches, a clay artist from the host city Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province, Wu Xiaoli and her team are busy making clay figures of world leaders who would be arriving in the city.

Wu has come a long way to be a clay artist. More than 20 years ago, she came to Hangzhou from a mountainous village at the age of 15, trying to find jobs to help her poor family pay the medical bills for her father, who had suffered bad injuries at work. For the next five years, she struggled to make extra income, even to the extent of becoming a “lab rat” for a scald treatment clinic where her hand was burnt with a red-hot iron and then coated with a special cream to test its healing effects.

As her interest intensified, the novice clay artist met Wu Zixiong, a Chinese applied art master, who introduced her to several instructors in Taiwan. After that, she went on to Japan and South Korea for further studies. 

Years later, she now has started a workshop named “Lemantu”, featuring not only clay art, but also philanthropy.

During the Inaugural XIN Philanthropy Conference in Hangzhou in July, Wu Xiaoli met UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and presented him with a clay figure featuring the UN head.

And she hopes to do the same for leaders from across the globe when they convene for the G20 Summit from September 3 to 5.