Field Visit Report



	Report of the Field Visit to Yihuang Orphanage April 2, 2002 by Dr. Peggy Gurrad

		We visited the Yihuang orphanage on Tuesday afternoon April 2, 2002. First we went to the room of the deaf boy to see the new computer that two of our sponsors had bought for him (one was his school sponsor). He has his own room with a bed and a small desk and chair for the computer. It looks like he spends lots of hours on the computer.

He can communicate by writing notes to himself and then he types his reply on the computer. Then it can be translated to English. He has been going to a public deaf school and has not been taught sign language. He finishes primary school this year and there are no deaf middle schools in Yihuang, so we have offered to pay for him to go to boarding deaf school in Nanchang. At first he didn’t want to do this but has now agreed.


	Next we visited a room with toddler and preschool aged children. (Our preschool is their kindergarten ages). It was a little confusing but apparently some of these children had been attending an outside kindergarten (with our sponsorship) and the teacher was fired. So now there is a woman at the orphanage that appears to be teaching the children and therefore these children are no longer receiving school sponsorship from us for the spring semester. They were sitting around a low table and reciting sentences (repeating after the teacher). They also had some toys, such as Legos, on the table in front of them that they were playing with.


	My daughter got out some play dough that we had brought with us. It took them a little bit (with her demonstrating) for them to get the idea but soon they were having a good time with it, especially the older ones. While we were in the room I didn’t make the connection that some of these children were ones we had been sponsoring in kindergarten. So if you were sponsoring a Yihuang kindergartener you can see if you recognize your child in these photos.


	We were also shown a child that will be in need of heart surgery. We'll keep you posted on this and of course will be looking for funding for the upcoming surgery.


	Next was a visit to the deaf children that are attending a private deaf boarding school. We drove through town to the river and parked there to walk across a footbridge. After a walk through a “village” on the edge of town we arrived at the deaf school. This school is not ideal but currently the only option we know that’s available to these children. They are not taught sign or allowed to sign and their ability to communicate seems limited. The teachers are all hearing.

We would love to find them a school such as the one in Jiujiang that our deaf student there attends (see Jiujiang report if interested) but it’s unlikely we can do that since the public deaf schools in China, when available, do not teach sign either.

But Amity believes strongly in bilingual education for the deaf (signing and oral language) so they will keep the situation of these children in mind and if any better opportunity develops they will certainly do what they can for these children.

We did meet the five students that we’re sponsoring there and passed out some gifts to the kids.


	Then we went to the infant room. It was clean and cheerful and the children seemed adequately cared for.