When Ma Chunxue became a dad at our Family Village in Changchun, he knew he and his wife had committed to taking care of three children with special needs until adulthood. What he didn’t know was how the children, especially his daughter HuiQiu, would change his life.
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When JuanJuan entered our preschool in Chengdu, she was an outgoing, enthusiastic four year old who loved school. She was always the first student to raise her hand to try to answer in class--whether she knew the answer or not.
I met 25-year-old Liu Jian at a provincial training in Changsha, Hunan. Jian grew up in the institution, and then worked there as a caregiver, helping feed, change and bathe the young children.
In June, I was assigned to take care of GuLin, a 14-month-old boy with a round face, big eyes and a Roman nose. The nurses in the hospital where he had had surgery to fix his bladder and urethra problems said he looked like the Chinese movie star Wang BaoQiang.
When 3-year-old RuFang was asked to take part in a preschool role reversal game called “Let me be Mama,” she accepted with enthusiasm. Though her entire young life has been spent at the Chuzhou Children’s Welfare Institution, RuFang easily slipped into the mother's role with no direction from her teachers.
Guo YangQin has been working for Half the Sky as a Little Sisters Field Supervisor: I grew up in the Beihai Social Welfare Institution and started working there right after I graduated from college. When Half the Sky offered me a job, at first I was confused and I hesitated—I thought Half the Sky was just a foreign charity that hired people to help children...
When Half the Sky opened a Children’s Center at the Zhengzhou Children’s Welfare Institution last year, our Youth Services staff was impressed with the academic potential of a teenage boy named BaiDe.
Last year on Children’s Day, MeiYing, a Little Sisters preschooler in Guilin, was asked if she had any dreams for her life. She surprised everyone by declaring, “I want to be a policewoman so I can arrest all the bad people.”
Last year, a little girl was found by the side of a road in Inner Mongolia. Summer had almost arrived, but after the long, cold winter, the girl’s birth parents had wrapped her carefully in a warm blanket to protect her.
Dear Jenny and Half the Sky,
Thanks to you, the Qingdao Children’s Welfare Institution is celebrating a wonderful anniversary today. Last year, on this day, we started our work with Half the Sky. Now four seasons have passed and I have so much wonderful news to share.
Our HTS center at Huangshi consists of a very small Baby Sisters Infant Nurture Program and a very special Big Sisters program.
ZiMing was almost ten months old and weighed less than nine pounds when he moved with his 25 China Care “brothers and sisters” into our new China Care Home.
