Field Visit Report



	Report of the Field Visit to Ganzhou Orphanage April 10, 2002 by Dr. Peggy Gurrad

		We visited the Ganzhou orphanage (Ganzhou Zhanggong District Social Welfare Institute) on Wednesday, April 10, 2002. First we met with the director who told us that this orphanage had been established before the revolution and they moved to the current location in 1963. (Photo l to r Jiang Conglin & Dr. Hong (Amity), the Director, Betsy, Peggy and the Vice Director.


	There are 25 people on staff covering 24 hours a day, 25 elderly residents and 51 abandoned children. Sixteen of the children are handicapped and/or older than one year of age. He says that the orphanage is “not large but it’s clean” and the “administration for the children’s division is quite organized”.


	The infants are grouped according to age since the care is different for each age group, which includes less than three months, three to six months and six to twelve months. There is a small clinic at the orphanage. They wished to thank us for our support. They feel that there has been good cooperation between them and Amity and that this cooperation has improved the children’s education and health situation.


	We have purchased an industrial sized clothes dryer (right) for them that they say has been “very helpful in this weather”. They are just finishing winter and now are entering the rainy season. We also provided two air conditioners/heaters, an electric water heater and a small clothes washer for which they thanked us. They are still in need of an industrial sized clothes washer.


	There are three Amity Hugging Grannies working at this orphanage, one with the handicapped children and two with the infants (less than one year old). We sponsored two school children last year but one was adopted. The remaining student is still attending school but her school record is “not quite good”. Starting in the fall they will be requesting sponsorship for a few more children.

They do not have a foster care program of their own but are interested in having Amity start one for the handicapped children. However some of these children are teenagers and Amity advised them that it is hard to start foster care at this old of an age. Teenagers may be too old to really attach to a foster family and may have a difficult time fitting in with family life after so many years of institutional care, especially if they have mental handicaps. The ideal age would be preschool or younger but it can also work out for the grade school aged children. No final decisions were made but it will be considered and discussed further.


	The first room we visited was the one for the infants aged six to twelve months. Our Hugging Granny in this room is Xiao Hou Ying. There were 18 infants and four workers there at dinnertime. Next was the room with the younger infants, this Hugging Granny was not there that day because her daughter was in the hospital.

And then we visited the schoolroom where the handicapped children were.

Hugging Granny, Liu Xing Ling, is a retired primary school teacher and is teaching these children.

They sang songs for us and recited several poems.

Betsy Mowrer, an adoptive mom with a daughter from Ganzhou traveled with me.

While we were talking with the schoolchildren she looked at one of the upper balconies of the Institute and saw a woman that looked like her daughter’s foster mother.

The foster mom must have recognized her too because as soon as Betsy motioned to her she came right down. She was very happy to meet Betsy again and talk with her.


	She and her husband were very attached to Betsy’s daughter and haven’t fostered any other children since she left. After giving her a gift and taking several photos we went up to their apartment, she works at the Institute with the elderly and their apartment building is right next to the orphanage buildings.


	We then went to dinner with the directors and some of the local Civil Affair officials. There were among the most cordial of all the orphanages. One of the officials, a woman, gave us an official toast and warm welcome several times, said it was too bad we weren’t staying longer so they could show us around the area and invited us back for another visit in the future.