Field Visit Report



	Report of the Field Visit to Yingtan Orphanage April 3-4, 2002 by Dr. Peggy Gurrad

		We visited the Yingtan orphanage on Wednesday, April 3, 2002. First we gathered in the meeting room where the director (pictured left) had a welcome speech prepared; five handwritten pages including many examples of how the children have benefited from our sponsorship. The orphanage was established in 1981 and they moved into the current building in June of 2001.


	It was built with funds from international adoptions and from a Hong Kong group. It’s a four sided building built around a central courtyard and houses the elderly in addition to the orphanage. Several of the elderly had their rooms on the ground floor next to the infant/toddler room and it looks like there is quite a bit of interaction between the elderly and the children. One man in particular spent a lot of time with the children while we were there, feeding several of them a banana at snack time.


	The Social Welfare Institute has 39 staff members and there are about 80 children, 26 are either physically or mentally handicapped. There are 40 children in foster care, 18 sponsored by us, many who have disabilities. Others are sponsored solely by the orphanage. While we were in the infant/toddler room it looked like there were about 15 kids and three caregivers in addition to the Grannies and an elderly resident. The Grannies spend some time in the infant room but a lot of their time is spent with the older, handicapped children.


	Amity’s Dr. Hong (right) first visited this orphanage three years ago and has seen much progress here and is very impressed. She appreciates the director’s cooperative attitude and Amity and the director have built trust with each other and have a good relationship, which she feels is very important since the Amity staff is not nearby. Director understands Amity’s objectives and agrees with them and they work together well so that the children can benefit. Their attitude is “children focused”, meaning they always think of what is best for the children and what the children will think is best, not what is most convenient for the orphanage.


	According to the director the Hugging Granny program has been of special benefit to the handicapped children, they do rehab exercises with the physically handicapped and teach the mentally retarded children songs and characters. Before there was less concern and caring for them, especially for the mentally handicapped. But after the Grannies worked with the children they became more active and healthier and the staff’s attitude toward them improved. Currently we have three Hugging Grannies at Yingtan (two rows down), Yu Hong Ying, Zhou Mei Zhen (below), and Wen Li Li (right), a retired doctor.


	The director then gave several examples of handicapped children that had benefited from the care of the Grannies. One example is FY, a girl with cerebral palsy, was very thin and just sat motionless on a potty chair all day long. Because the staff thought she was dying they gave up on her. But a Granny gave her special attention, feeding her food she brought from home. She also massaged her legs daily. After several months she made great progress and a foster family was found that was willing to take her and she is really enjoying life in a family.


	Before the care from the Granny no foster family would accept her. Now she understands people and can interact with them. She speaks words such as Grandma and Auntie and can stand with assistance. And there was a small, timid girl named FMT who would cry frequently, especially if anyone came near her. Staff felt she had been abused prior to being abandoned. One of the Grannies gave her special care, speaking gently with her, taking her for walks in quiet places and singing songs to her. She improved significantly, enough so that she could be adopted internationally.

	And FL, a child with cerebral palsy, wasn’t able to sit or stand and even had difficulty eating. Now after a year in foster care he is very attached to his foster mom and grandfather. He can walk with his foster mom’s help and is “a very lovely boy”. If his mom stands in front of him and encourages him he can take a few steps alone. (But we’d like to purchase him a wheelchair since the foster mom is not able to help him this intensively all the time.) He likes his foster mom very much. He is able to speak some words (especially mom, older sister, papa and grandpa) and greet people. His older sister complains because her mother spends so much time with him.

She says, “Mom, you are so gentle with him and so strict with me.” And they even gave an example of one of the older girls who had the love and comfort of her foster mother when her period came for the first time and she was very frightened; her mother was able to explain things to her.

The children really enjoy family life and their relationship with their family members. The director says they are very careful when choosing their foster families. They look at the families’ financial situation, whether they are kind to children (including their own) and whether they want to foster because they care about the child, not just for the money.

We are sponsoring eleven students in school. One child, FF, is no longer under our sponsorship since she has returned to her own family. She had been stolen from her family at the train station and the thief tried to sell her to another family. But he was caught by the police who then brought FF to the orphanage. She was then placed in foster care.

The other boy in this foster home, FKH, is mentally retarded and was upset when FF left. He also has a hard time understanding why his parents don’t come find him like hers did. He was abandoned in a temple and brought to the orphanage by a monk. He was placed in a foster home and his foster mother loves him very much, he has gained weight and improved a great deal. He is now able to attend special ed school, which he is very happy about, he gets to go to school like a “normal kid” and is quite proud of himself. We visited him in his foster home and he is indeed thriving there. He talks constantly and has many questions. It was also interesting to note that he personally called the director of the orphanage on her cell phone in the middle of our meeting to ask when we were coming since he had stayed home from school after lunch to wait for us and was getting anxious about why we weren’t there yet.

	One of our students, FQY, goes to a school for the deaf in Nanchang. He is a very talented artist and recently won a prize in an art contest for creativity. Two years ago when Dr. Hong first met him he had never been to school. So even though he was quite a bit older he started first grade. Another student, FQ (right), is going to a vocational health school to become a nurse and is a “very independent girl”. Two of our students, FZ and FN, both won the “good at three aspects” award at school recently. This means they have a good school record, good relationships with teacher and students, and are a good child in the family.

The director was also very grateful for the medical assistance we’ve provided, especially for the heart surgery we sponsored for FX. Before the surgery he was always getting in trouble for trying to run and play with the other children because this was dangerous for him. His lips and fingers were purple. Now after surgery he is “totally healthy” and enjoys running. His good health means even more to the staff because they are reminded of another orphan they had with congenital heart disease that died last year at the age of sixteen. He was on the list of requested sponsorship for heart surgery but got pneumonia and died. He was a “good and kind hearted boy” and the staff liked him very much. The director was sad she had not been able to get help for him and even more grateful that FX was able to get his surgery.

	We visited the infant/toddler room that was clean and bright with lot’s of windows. The cribs were new and pretty and we were told they were from “American friends”. The Hugging Grannies met us there but shortly after returned to the room with the handicapped where they spent quite a bit of time. The infants and toddlers were alert and active, many in walkers and some walking on their own. One particularly engaging toddler was FYG who was all smiles and into everything. There were about 14 children in the room and at least three staff members (not including the Grannies).

In the handicapped room the children were sitting at desks and had some exercise books. There was a chalkboard and also posters with characters, vocabulary and poems, which a few of them could recite. There was a boy with cerebral palsy who appeared to be quite bright. Dr. Hong spent quite a bit of time with the three Grannies reviewing his rehab exercises and checking his legs. Most of the other children in the room are mentally handicapped except one “healthy” child, FJH, who was returned from foster care. He and two of the other boys were quite excited by the matchbox cars we gave them.

	We were able to visit six of the children we are sponsoring in foster care and the foster parents were wonderful. First was FY, a boy of about twelve years (was several years old when abandoned) that has hydrocephalus. He is not able to stand so we are purchasing him a wheelchair, which he was excited to hear about. He is animated and talkative, with a beautiful smile, and says, “Yes, I am happy here.” “My own mom didn’t want me, I like this mom (foster mom).” His foster mom is also all smiles and obviously loves FY very much.

We visited FL (pictured above right), one of the cerebral palsy children mentioned above, who can now say, “Have a cup of tea” and call for his Grandpa saying, “Grandpa come, we have guests.” Grandpa did come out and says, “My grandson is very smart”. Grandpa loves him very much and keeps asking Dr. Hong if they can get some medical treatment for FL to fix his legs. FL can now walk with assistance but after watching him we decided to purchase him a walker so that he can learn to get around when his mother is not there at his side. FL and his foster mother also appeared very well attached.

Next was FKH, the boy mentioned above that called the director on his cell phone. He told us he was very happy and definitely did not want to go back to the orphanage. He wants to be a policeman when he grows up. He sang the “Mama Hao” song he learned at his special ed school and brought out pages from a book to ask me all sorts of questions about the animals and others pictures.

FN and FLJ are two girls in second grade of primary school and live in a foster home together. They are both in the same class, FN got an A on a recent test and at mid term FL Juan got a 85 in math and a 56 in Chinese. LJ is very diligent and always does her homework when she comes home from school, before she goes out to play. But Nan likes to play first and will do her homework before bedtime. FN is another example of the benefit of a caring foster family for disabled children. She has a clubfoot and it was thought she needed an orthopedic shoe. But after being placed in a foster home the foster family did rehab exercises with her and frequently reminded her to walk correctly. She has now improved and just wears a sturdy normal shoe. When we visited her we were asked which girl was the girl with the club foot and we weren’t able to tell until she rolled up her pants, took off her slipper and we looked closely.

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