How is Da Ai Xin Doing?

Through the blog, a reader asked the question:

In May, you posted information about a little girl and her battle with a throat tumor. I am wondering if there is any updated information. Has anyone from the U.S. stepped up to adopt her?

Any information you can provide would be great!

Thank you,
Katy

Hello Katy:

Thank you for asking about Da Ai Xin. She was found earlier this year and is not on the adoption list. Since May, we brought her to Beijing and she received surgery. We found her a local foster family and she is now with them.

Melody

Rehabilitation Centers for Brain Damaged Children and Travel Last Week

Dear Friend--
I am glad to share with you again about what we are doing in China.

Four new children arrived at Children's Hope Center:
They are the children sent to Beijing for eye surgeries. 200,000 RMB ($25,000) by Aokang, a Chinese company, were funded on behalf of Children's Hope to arrange eye surgeries for at risk children. Out of the 4 from Xin Jiang, two are suitable for surgeries.

Update on the project of rehabilitation centers:
Over 1 million RMB ($125,000) has been received on behalf of Children's Hope for the building of 40 rehabilitation centers for brain damaged children. This donation is the result of the CCTV program aired in China on May 20. After a thorough survey, 37 orphanages have been chosen as recipients for the new centers. The funds will soon be sent to the company to make and deliver the equipment. I have thoughts on this to share, if possible, soon.

Ms. Wu and I attended the third annual Orphanage Director Forum, held on June 13 and 14 in Qing Dao by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. There were 160 directors and over 100 provincial officials in attendance. Speakers led discussions on what the Chinese government is doing and thinking in terms of child welfare in the near future. I met some old director friends, such as Dir Pei from Luo Yang, Dir Zhong from Mao Ming. I have to say one of the greatest things in my life is to know and work with some ofthe kindhearted orphanage directors that really care for their children.

Here are the main points I learned from the Forum:

1. The Tomorrow Project successfully helped over 30,000 orphans to receive surgeries. As it is approaching the end of a three-year-term this year, it will become a “long-term project”. The government will continue to fund surgeries for orphans, especially those in the state run orphanages.

2. The government is starting a new program, Blue Sky Project, to help more orphan children. The main goal is to build more orphanages all over China. The main function of the orphanages will change from mainly institutional care for orphans only to institutional care plus foster care and rehabilitation and training center capabilities.

3. China has implemented foster care models for the last decade, with both benefits and some lessons learned. As most foster families live in rural areas, there is a general lack of medical care, rehabilitation facility availability, and effective monitoring. In order to develop the current foster care system, the majority of directors agreed to utilize the resources in current orphanages, by building foster units in the orphanage buildings and by setting up service centers with rehabilitation facilities near the foster families.

4. The government is now encouraging child welfare workers to help not only the 60,000 orphans in the state run orphanages, but also the 570,000 orphans in rural areas who were not included in the government program previously, and even those children living under poverty line that are in danger of being orphaned. The help includes medical care, rehabilitation, etc.

China is highly centralized country in the area of social welfare. Being able to learn the Ministry of Civil Affairs' focus is extremely helpful for our own focus on what we need to do as an NGO in this area.

I thought of several areas we can work along with the government: A, training for orphanage staff in rehabilitation and mental health; B, vocational training for older orphans; and C, foster care centers in rural areas, etc.

On June 25-26, I am invited to the annual forum on street children issues, also held by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The attendees will be the directors of homeless shelters from all over China. My purpose is to learn about the population of street children in China and their need, and how we can be of help.

Sincerely yours,
Melody Zhang

(In Photo: [L to R] Official Ms. Gao from Ministry of Civil Affairs, Melody Zhang, Director Pei from Luo Yang Orphanage at the Orphanage Director Forum.)

A Busy Day, Post-Placement Family Meets Faces of Children's Hope Center's Fruit

June 5, yesterday, was a busy day for me. A family came to Beijing on their way to the U.S. and I went to the airport to see them for a post placement interview. They arrived on 11:12 a.m. and the flight for Chicago leaves on 4:00 p.m. I gave them two choices, to do the interview at a restaurant at the airport or to go to Children’s Foster Home nearby and do it there. They chose the latter, which was my choice, too. I called the driver back and we all loaded for the foster home.

It was a hot day, 36 degree Celsius (over 90F) to be exact, and the air conditioning in our van stops when it gets too hot. To my surprise, they didn’t seem to be bothered by it. This couple has lived in Chengdu, Sichuan for the past six years, and they adopted their daughter last August. They had their 4-year-old birth son with them as well. They are an amazing family doing some great work there. The mother told me after visiting the foster home, they didn’t know how much more Children’s Hope does besides adoption work until now.

At the foster home, we met Yang De Fang, the 9-year-old little girl from YunNan. Children’s Hope paid for her heart surgery last year and she is now waiting to get another surgery, the amputation of her two feet! Her feet were too deformed and infected that without the surgery, she has no hope of standing up. She is a brave little girl, telling me she is looking forward to be able to walk with prosthesis after the surgery.

Before I went to the airport, we had a special visitor, Little Guan Jun Rong. She was the little girl we raised 30,000 RMB ($3,750) for leukemia treatment last year. She is now recovered! What moves us all even more is that her mom and dad are her adoptive parents and her dad went back to her home town and located her birth mom to be her bone marrow donor. The entire family moved to Beijing and lived by the hospital to take care of her for a year. I vividly remember meeting Mr. Guan last year in my office and the sadness on his face. It’s such a joy to see this proud father today. They are one of the few families to have visited us after surgery. Mr. Guan said he will never forget this year. He has applied to be the bone marrow donor at the hospital.

From Mr. Guan we learned, 75-80% of the leukemia children can be treated and recovered. But the high cost made it impossible for most of these children to survive the disease. The average cost of leukemia treatment in China is around 250,000 to 300,000RMB ($30,000 to $36,000) and Jun Rong’s family had to sell their only house to get the funds. For the average poor Chinese family with income less than 2,000RMB ($250) per year, this does sound unreachable. Children’s Hope currently does not have a project to help leukemia children, but we are willing to raise funds case by case for children like Jun Rong through our SOS platform on our China web. We also know there is a Little Angel fund from Chinese Red Cross that is specially set for leukemia children. There are more children waiting than the funds available, of course. We hope more organizations and individuals will join us to help these children. What’s better, we hope one of these days, all the children in China will have medical insurance like most of the western world! We believe with what we are doing and all the others devoted loving people, together, we can reach this goal.

--Melody

Pictures:
1 GuanJun Rong before Leukemia treatment in early 2006
2 Guan Jun Rong and her family visit Children’s Hope office in Beijing on June 5th, 2007