At the Orphanage

Alex's Notes: This post is from a gal named Valerie who is currently a teacher at Guiyang University. We are working on facilitating funding her requests. If you are interested in helping, please contact us @ alex @ china-babies.com.

-------------------------------------

Please Help.

A terrible way to start an overdue blog, I know, but it's, I think, the most important element of this update. I think there is a reason for everything, and if you're reading this blog, perhaps the reason is because you can help many beautiful, neglected children in Guiyang. In the last blog I mentioned that I found an orphanage in Longdongbao (my subdivision of Guiyang) and was trying to start a volunteer club of students to go and volunteer to teach there. In spite of the many difficulties I was told I would encounter, I had help from above and after many, many blessings leading up to this moment, today I was joined by 21 Guiyang University students to hold our first (of many) volunteer teaching session at the Longdongbao Gueryuan (Longdongbao Orphanage).

When translated from Chinese, our group's name is Spring Sunshine (it sounds much more pleasant in Chinese, I promise). It's remarkable how easy it was to start this; all I did (aside from pray a lot!!) was ask a few students if they would ever be interested in helping me start a volunteer organization to help out a local orphanage, and one of my students (his English name is Dustin) told me that he started a group last year called Spring Sunshine whose purpose was to volunteer to teach at impoverished schools in the countryside. The group had many members, but they didn't know how to find schools to participate in, and when they would find schools, didn't know how to afford to transport themselves to the schools (my school doesn't have a lot of money and my students definitely don't come from wealthy families), so their efforts were in vain and they never had an opportunity to volunteer. When I told him about the orphanage he was just as excited as I was, and last Saturday the two of us walked to the orphanage and met with the administration to get approval. Because Spring Sunshine is student run (AKA: run by Chinese, not a foreigner) they were very receptive, it was extremely easy to get approval, my university didn't give us any troubles, and therefore we are now in business! And, because it is student-run, it is sustainable for many years to come!

Today, at 8:40 am, 21 students and I paraded from our university to the orphanage (about a 35 minute walk) carrying a flag that (in Chinese) announced we are the Guiyang University Spring Sunshine Volunteers to Help Teach Local Children. We did this to raise awareness within the community. Orphanages in China are always located far away from the rest of society (this one is difficult to get to), orphans are completely neglected, and after a certain age (at this particular orphanage the age is 16) the orphans are sent to nursing homes where they spend the rest of their lives playing cards and mahjong (a Chinese game) with the elderly. Unfortunately, because of China's one-child policy, families devote all of their love to their only child, and consequently there isn't enough love to go around for the "alone child" orphans. We hope that by drawing attention to ourselves we can show the community that these children are lovable, helpable, and maybe draw more volunteers to love and help these children.

While there are certainly things that I cannot discuss online, let me do my best to describe today, the children, and the orphanage. Longdongbao Gueryuan (guer is the word for orphan…it literally means "alone child") is physically a decent place. There are basketball courts and a small playground and it's a rather large building. They even had two adult bikes that the small children can share (they cannot sit on the seat because the bikes are too big so instead they sit on the bars between the handlebars and seats). The children are of all different ages (there's a baby as well as a wing for severe and profound children that we did not see but that I have heard many things about from others and cannot discuss). We were met by 30-40 orphan children between the ages of 4-14. Most were girls, but there were also a handful of boys who had minor physical disabilities (birthmarks, hunchbacks, limps, etc.). Their clothes, perhaps from lack of funding, were very, very worn and none of them had socks on their feet in spite of the cold weather.

My students prepared performances for the children and performed their acts today (singing, dancing, kung fu, etc.) and then taught the performances to the children. The children loved it and smiled brightly. Some of my students bought the orphans a bunch of hair ties, candy, notebooks, pens/pencils and pencil sharpeners and gave them to the students as prizes, which was like giving them the world. The children were so grateful! The most moving part of today, though, was after the performances, where we sat around and chatted with the children, had them sit on our laps, played with their hair, etc. I spent most of the day with 5 girls who were between the ages of 11-14 who were so hungry for touch. They all wanted to sit on my lap, hold my hand, have their backs rubbed, etc. And it wasn't because I was a foreigner; it was because I was human. Every child that each of us encountered today was the same. The all clung to me or to my students, told us they loved us, and told us how lonely they were. One boy, who wouldn't say a word to anyone, sat in a corner and cried. I held him for a while until he stopped crying, but he just looked at me with sad eyes for a long time. One girl, a beautiful 11 year old who held my hand until the moment I left, kept saying "we are so lonely. Please don't leave."

How can you help? Any way you can think of, for one! For another, Spring Sunshine is asking for donations of children/baby books (low reading level!), toys, and baby-children's clothes, teaching resources, etc.. This is so needed, more so than I am allowed to discuss, and it is also tax-deductible. You can send these items to my address (available upon request), and if you have any other ideas please don't hesitate to yell them out!! Spring Sunshine is all ears and we want to help these children as much as possible.

On behalf of all my students, I have been asked to add a "Xiexie!" (thank you!) from them all! :)

As always, wo hen ai heiyou hen xiang nimen!

xo

Valflynn Blog