Report 2005: Social Welfare Division


Helping the disadvantaged groups in society to help themselves is the focus of Amity's Social Welfare work. Orphans, children/young adults with special needs and leprosy victims were the main target groups for the work in 2005. Equality and quality of life are also key themes, with Amity seeking to provide the same opportunities to disadvantaged groups that people in mainstream society enjoy.

Orphanages

Amity works with a total of 65 orphanages located in 12 provinces throughout China (Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Xinjiang, Zhejiang, Ningxia, Fujian, Guangxi, Sichuan, Tibet). Amity seeks first and foremost to provide the love and care which all children need, within a family environment wherever possible. Where necessary, medical needs are taken care of and children are sent to study in community schools alongside ordinary boys and girls. In this way, Amity hopes that the orphans it works with will grow into healthy adults with every confidence in their future.

  • 747 children from 41 orphanages were placed with foster care families.
  • 831 children from 57 orphanages were sponsored to attend local mainstream schools.
  • 246 "Amity Grandmas", retired ladies who love children, worked in 47 orphanages providing supportive care to the children and some training to orphanage staff where appropriate.
  • 35 children from 11 orphanages received medical treatment for conditions including congenital heart deformities, harelips and cleft palates, club feet and anus atresia, in addition to the project of “Tomorrow Plan” run by the government.
  • 18 orphanages were provided with much-needed facilities such as rehabilitation equipment, playground equipment, incubators, kitchenware, washing machines, air conditioners and other items.

"Everything for these children"

"We try to find ways to show the children how much we care for them, such as bringing them small gifts, or food from our homes. ... Although we don't have much money, when we see how happy the children are to receive our gifts, we can't help but smile and feel happiness as well. We will continue to work hard to further help these children, using our love to help them recover, and providing a happy environment for them to grow up in."

Ma'anshan Social Welfare Institute
November 11, 2005

"What I have learned from protecting the children"

My name is Lu Xiaomei and I myself am an orphan. I spent my childhood in the social welfare institute of Xuzhou (Jiangsu Province). In 1978, many years after I had left the institute, I returned to work in the disabled children's division. Then, upon retirement in 2004, I applied to join the Amity Grandmas Program in order to stay and continue serving the children I love in this institute. So I have now been working as a nurse here for over 25 years.

Based on these many years of experience, I can tell you that being an Amity Grandma is not an easy thing to do. First of all, you need an abundance of love and patience – this is essential in helping disabled children. If you treat the children in a social welfare institute as if they were your own, you will instinctively devote all your energy towards helping them. Doing this will enable the children to feel the care, love, and warmth that a mother would provide.

Next, to be a good Amity Grandma, you must overcome all timidity and any fear of being infected. Some of the disabled children in a social welfare institute have spent long periods of time as vagrants on the street, and their bodies have become filthy, with various bugs crawling all over them and inside them. This can cause people to both pity and fear them. Some of these children also catch infectious diseases and need to be kept apart from others. A social welfare institute does not have anywhere near the same facilities that a hospital has for doing this. So, to keep the infected children separate takes a lot of courage – who is not afraid of getting infected themselves? Who does not worry about also infecting their own family members when coming in to contact with such children? But ... this is necessary work to help these disabled children.

Lu Xiaomei

Each day I help the children wash their faces, take baths, cut their fingernails, etc. There is a lot of work to be done. In this environment you cannot be afraid of hardships, and you must get used to being tired. You are not only responsible for matters pertaining to the children's daily life, you must also work in cooperation with the nurses at the institute to help the children recover from illnesses. I try to pay close attention to every child's particular health situation. I want them to become independent, and yet also I try to get close to them and let them feel the love and care of an Amity Grandma. When I hear a child say "grandmother" to me, it makes me very happy because they have acquired the ability to greet people on their own.

If I don't see the children for even two days, I start to feel uncomfortable and miss them dreadfully.

Lu Xiaomei, Amity Grandma at
Xuzhou Social Welfare Institute
November 15, 2005

Hearing-impairment and Deafness

The SigAm Project is the cooperative project of Amity with the Jiangsu Provincial Professional Committee for Special Education (JPPCSE) and the Signo Foundation in Norway for promoting and pioneering bilingual education of deaf children in China. The project is being carried out in Nanjing, Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Changzhou and Suzhou cities in Jiangsu Province and aims to promote research on the localization of bilingual deaf education and an increase in its application in China. The pilot project has expanded this year in its focus from pre-school education to also include the first grade of primary school. The preschool bilingual deaf education has now started in four different locations of Shandong Province: Tancheng, Shuyang, Linshu and Mengyin.

In 2005, work on this pilot project included the following:

  • Training in bilingual deaf education provided by Chinese and Norwegian specialists for principals and staff of schools for the deaf, including training in specific pilot bilingual classes.
  • Training for deaf teachers involved in the projects.
  • Regularly conducted seminars and activities on preparation of lessons.
  • Training for parents of deaf children on bilingual deaf education.
  • Supporting the pilot bilingual classes in preschool and first grade programs in the five target schools in Jiangsu Province.
  • Promotion and publicity:
    • Translation/publication of Sign Bilingual Education in Denmark
    • Translation/publication of Theory and Practice of Sign Bilingual Education – Collections of training materials and articles from both Norwegian and Chinese counterparts.
    • The SigAm Project '06 Calendar shows vividly the fruitful visual results of the children in the project classes.
  • Sign language visual teaching materials (eg., stories for children in sign language, adaptive sign language materials for first grade maths and Chinese instruction, etc.) were made in each of the five project schools.
  • Research conducted in deaf education, sign language, deaf communities and their history and culture by scholars in the local universities who partner in SigAm projects.


Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) and Special Education Projects

Children suffering from polio or cerebral palsy in poor areas of China are in desperate need of medical support and psychological counseling as well as access to educational opportunities, vocational training and social rehabilitation. Amity seeks wherever possible to provide these things, encouraging the families, schools and communities around such children to accept them and support them in their special needs. In this way, it is hoped that these children can grow to become normal and valued members of the wider community.

Amity seeks to provide CBR services to polio victims and children with cerebral palsy in Tancheng County, Shandong and at the New Hope Centre in Pizhou County, Jiangsu Province.

Services provided to some 648 beneficiaries in Pizhou and 384 beneficiaries in Tancheng (mostly polio victims), included: surgery, braces, rehabilitation coaching, CBR services, education sponsorship, constructing obstacle-free environments in schools, vocational training, and providing micro-credit loans for particularly poor families with children.

37 polio victims from Pizhou participated in national and international sports events. They won 27 gold medals, 9 silver medals and 10 bronze medals in the following events: tennis, table tennis, fencing, weight lifting, basketball and football. 23 polio victims who are members of the NHC folk music band were recruited by the Special Art Department of Beijing Science and Technology College.

Training in Caring for Children with Cerebral Palsy.

Supported by China Partners Network (CPN) from Washington State and the professional team from the Children Therapy Unit (CTU) of Good Samaritan Hospital, Amity, in collaboration with China Association of Rehabilitation Medicine, organized a four-day training course on cerebral palsy treatment at the Nanjing Orphanage in April, 2005. It was the third occasion for cooperation between CPN and Amity. The training course is designed to improve the knowledge and techniques of the frontline rehabilitation staff in orphanages and ultimately to benefit the children with cerebral palsy under their care. More than 50 participants from orphanages and community children’s hospitals in the country shared their questions and insights with the medical team from the USA. With the positive feedback from the participants and the facilitators, this training will be developed into a regular program in the coming years that involves more input and sharing from beneficiaries.

In October, a one-week training course on rehabilitation and special education for disabled children was conducted in Suzhou in cooperation with Suzhou Bo Ai Children’s Rehabilitation Center for orphanage staff from Jiangsu Province.

Two seminars were conducted for the Amity Grandmas from Jiangxi Province (October) and Jiangsu Province (November), providing opportunities for the Amity Grandmas to share their experiences and to learn from each other. In the seminars local experts were invited to contribute some training in the areas of rehabilitation and special education.

Story of Hong Tongjing

Tongjing at 3 months

Hong Tongjing was only three months old when she arrived at the Nanchang Social Welfare Institute. She was fragile, weak, and suffered from serious malnutrition. She seemed to have a problem with her legs, and she would frequently twitch. After a physical examination, Tongjing was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Under intensive care and treatment, her overall condition began to improve greatly. When she was five months old, she was eligible to receive foster care supported by the Amity Foundation and soon entered a family.

The foster mother is kind-hearted and had experience with children. From the first moment she saw Tongjing, she loved her and wanted to take her home. The foster family brought her into their home with great fanfare. Under such loving care, Tongjing has grown up to be an adorable girl with a round, rosy face, flexible arms and a strong body. She is even able to walk and run freely by herself now.

Tongjing now

Tongjing's ability to learn new things is slower than others. But in spite of this her foster mother patiently and repeatedly tries to teach her new things. Since Tongjing was four, she has received rehabilitation training at the Nanchang Social Welfare Institute. She now performs much better than the other children there and adapts to new environments quickly. She will ask to feed herself instead of being fed by others, even though she eats slowly and has to conquer many obstacles.

All of the efforts and love from her caregivers and family over the past few years have laid a good, solid foundation for Tongjing’s future development both physically and mentally. She is now attending kindergarten. Her teachers note that Tongjing is vivacious and gets along well with the other children.


Rehabilitation and Economic Development Projects for Leprosy Victims

Amity cooperates with the Centers for Disease Control (CDCs) in Jiangsu and Hunan Provinces in order to provide services to victims of leprosy and other infectious diseases.

In 2005 these services included the following:

  • Amity supported Mobile Medical Teams to provide Home-based Rehabilitation Service to the disabled leprosy victims in Jiangsu Province.
  • Amity provided technical training and micro-credit loans to the families of leprosy victims in Yongshun County and Huaihua City, Hunan Province.
  • Training courses on awareness about infectious diseases were organized in Zhangjiajie City, Yongshun County, Yuanling County and Jingzhou County, Hunan Province.
  • 100 children from poor families with one or more leprosy victims were provided with scholarships to complete their basic education in Zhangjiajie, Huaihua and Wugang Cities, Hunan Province.
  • Amity conducted the Community Rehabilitation Project for leprosy victims in Yuanling County, Hunan province.
  • In Huaihua leprosy village, Amity reconstructed and renovated the drinking water and electrical systems for the residents.

Amity Home of Blessings

The Amity Home of Blessings (in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province) aims to provide training in life skills for young people with mild to profound mental retardation to help them adapt to society. The curriculum employed now includes literacy, basic mathematics, music, art, daily skills, self-protection and personal hygiene.

Amity hopes that the Home will also attract the attention of the greater community in a positive way, so that this special group of people will be recognized as equally valuable human beings and good citizens of society.

There are currently 35 clients at the Home, some of whom are on a boarding basis, and there is a staff of 10, who are either educators or caretakers.