Update From Half The Sky

Hello and a belated Happy Spring!

In February, during the last hectic days of the Little Mouse emergency, when we were trying to protect so many children from China’s winter storms, I got a phone call. Half the Sky was to be honored in a most extraordinary way. We had been selected to receive the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. In Oxford, England. Presented by former US President, Jimmy Carter.

I sat there teary-eyed as I continued updating the list of urgent needs at orphanages hard-hit by the storms. We’ve won a few awards and some fine recognition in Half the Sky's 10 fantastic years - but the Skoll Award is not just another award. It is given each year to a few select organizations whose proven innovations have “the potential for large-scale influence on critical challenges of our time.”

Our work is being recognized not just for the lives we have helped directly, but also for the positive changes we are helping to bring about for all of China’s orphaned children. I am so proud of Half the Sky. I am so proud of you - of all of us who have worked so hard and given so much!

The Skoll World Forum at Oxford was amazing. You can see some of it here:
http://socialedge.org/features/skoll-world-forum , including presentations by Jimmy Carter and Al Gore. I met dozens of extraordinary people from 35 countries, each one doing their bit to make the world a better place.

The Award comes with a monetary gift. That gift will help us formally evaluate the effectiveness of each aspect of our four HTS programs so that we can understand how best to teach others what we have learned. That gift will also help us expand our outreach so that others around the world will hear the voices of institutionalized children and learn how they can help. But that gift won’t run our programs or support our hundreds of loving nannies, teachers and foster parents. For that, we must turn to you, the community of friends who make our work possible.

Being part of the Little Mouse emergency response was a stunning experience for all of us at Half the Sky. Our community care together like never before. And you brought along perhaps 2,000 of your friends, family members, colleagues and neighbors. But not one cent of those phenomenally generous donations will go to support Half the Sky programs.

People sometimes tell us they assume that, because HTS programs have been so successful, we don’t need their help anymore. The very opposite is true!

Now, as we re-group and recover from Little Mouse and carry on with our efforts to bring family-like nurturing care to ALL of China’s orphaned children, we need your help more than ever.

The great news is, there are all kinds of ways you can help keep Half the Sky’s vital programs alive and growing.

Celebrate Mother’s Day with Half the Sky – We have a beautiful Nanny Sponsorship certificate that we hope you will want to present to every mother, grandmother, mother-to-be in your life.
http://give.halfthesky.org/prostores/servlet/Detail?no=76

Sponsor a child – Many, many of the children in our programs still don’t have sponsors. We will be adding more children this spring and fall as we open four new Half the Sky centers (more about that below.) http://www.halfthesky.org/help/sponsorships.php#spchild

Help older children live their dreams -
http://www.halfthesky.org/help/sponsorships.php#bssponsor

Help children who can’t be adopted know the love of a forever family - http://www.halfthesky.org/help/sponsorships.php#spfamily

Or underwrite the costs of a variety of special projects, each one with the power to change young lives - http://www.halfthesky.org/help/sponsoraproject.php

In fact, however you decide to help, you will touch a child’s life.
That’s a promise.

A little bit of news:
Funds from the Little Mouse Emergency Fund have been fully distributed to the 98 orphanages that needed help. We visited with the Vice Minister at the end of February; you can see our final wrap-up here http://www.halfthesky.org/work/littlemouse.php. We’re now working with the Ministry of Civil Affairs on emergency preparedness kits for all the orphanages.

Because of the storms, we were asked to postpone our spring builds. The Guiyang build will now happen in May. Hangzhou has been postponed until fall.

Next week we will travel and select the sites for our already-planned fall builds (funds permitting, of course!) We’ll announce the cities immediately after. We are now accepting applications from those who would like to join a work crew in early September.
http://www.halfthesky.org/help/docs/chinacrewform.pdf

Our wonderful annual Spring Progress Report newsletter is in the works right now and should go out in the mail next month. If you have a change of mailing address or would like to get on the list, please notify us http://www.halfthesky.org/newsroom/mailinglist.php

Thank you, every one of you, for helping Half the Sky make better the lives of so many children.

More news soon!

With love and gratitude,

Jenny

Jenny Bowen
Executive Director
Half the Sky Foundation
www.halfthesky.org





China-Babies Research