Orphanage Assistance FujianKids

The material on this page highlights some of the ways in which donations to FujianKids are used to help children in the orphanages in Fujian Province.

Many of the orphanage children have special medical needs. FujianKids sponsors surgical procedures for orphanage children, including heart surgery, bowel surgery, cleft lip/palate repair, club foot repair, and others. Quite a few orphanage children have cerebral palsy, and for some of the larger orphanages we have provided staff training and purchased physical therapy equipment so these children can receive the therapy they need (see photos). We also provide a variety of medical appliances for children who need them, such as hearing aids, walkers, and wheelchairs.

Education prepares orphanage children for the future. Without extra assistance, however, many orphanage children cannot get the education they need. FujianKids provides educational support in four areas.

Education for Special Needs Children
At the Nanping orphanage, several children are unable to attend school because of physical or mental disabilities. FujianKids has hired a retired teacher to teach a class of special needs children in the orphanage every afternoon. For the first time, these children are getting an education, and they are blossoming with the extra attention they receive and the self-confidence they gain as they learn to read and write (see photos). We hope to expand this program to additional orphanages in the province.

Assistance for Hearing-Impaired Children
In addition to providing them with hearing aids where appropriate, FujianKids sponsors speech therapy and special education for orphanage children with hearing impairments. In Fuzhou, the provincial capital, we have established a classroom for hearing impaired children in the orphanage. We also are establishing a residential program at the Jinjiang School for the Deaf so that children from rural orphanages can receive an education and vocational training at that school.

Career and Vocational Training
Although physical or mental disabilities prevent most orphanage teenagers from developing job skills, FujianKids sponsors vocational education and training for those children who are able. We are continually seeking ways to help disabled teenagers develop skills that will enable them to earn some income and to engage in satisfying work.

Educational Assistance for Impoverished Children
In addition to helping orphanage children with their educational needs, FujianKids provides educational assistance to children who have lost one or both parents and live in impoverished circumstances outside an orphanage. We do this in partnership with the Jinzhuoutou Village School, which is located in one of the poorest areas of Fujian Province.

Foster Care
Early in 2003 we began sponsoring a foster care program for special needs children at the Fuzhou Children's Welfare Institute. Most of the children in foster care have a special medical need. Foster care provides these children with more love, attention, and nurturance than they can receive in an orphanage. In conjunction with the foster care program, FujianKids provides medical treatment and surgeries for these children, which will both improve the quality of their lives and their chances of being adopted into a permanent home in China or abroad.

We plan to expand our foster care program to additional orphanages in the near future.

Days Out and Having Fun
Most children have few chances to see the world outside the orphanage. As a result, many develop an "institutional" mindset and have no idea of what a more normal life is like or what opportunities they might have if they apply themselves and work toward an educational or career goal. Our Days Out program provides opportunities for orphanage children to spend some more time outside of the orphanage and to simply have some fun (see photos).

Family Mentors
In our Family Mentor Program, a qualified family in the local community is assigned a specific orphanage child and takes this child to live in their home for two weekends a month. In addition to providing the children with more care and personal attention than they receive in the orphanage, this program allows them to be exposed to normal family life and provides a chance to experience the world outside the orhanage. Children with disabilities have shown marked improvement in their skills during their time in this program.

Shopping Experiences
Orphanage children rarely have spending money and their clothes are purchased by the orphanage, so they have essentially no experience in money management, shopping, or marketplace negotiation. In our Clothes for Kids program, children are given money for clothes and taken on shopping expeditions. At first, these children don't even know how to choose clothes for themselves, but through these experiences they gain self-confidence, competence, and increased pride in their appearance.

Chinese New Year Celebrations
The lunar new year is the most important holiday in China, and FujianKids helps make this a special time for orphanage children by sponsoring new year celebrations at the orphanage. We also sponsor shopping trips for them so the orphanage kids can have new clothes for the new year like everyone else. Read about a Chinese New Year celebration sponsored by FujianKids here.

FujianKids purchases equipment items to improve the children's living conditions and free orphanage staff from housekeeping chores so they can spend more time with the children. Among the items purchased for orphanages are the following:

Please Note: Use of photos on this site for any other purpose is absolutely forbidden. Under no circumstances should any officials in China be contacted about the possibility of adopting any of the children shown on this site. Doing so could jeopardize our ability to get these photos which are important feedback to our sponsors and our fundraising efforts. Please contact us if you have any questions.