China
ICAN Hope Orphanages: Yuncheng, Shenzhen and Chengdu
ICAN’s adoption agency division Great Wall is now working exclusively with the Yuncheng, Shenzhen and Chengdu orphanages in China to place their waiting children. We are also working with orphanage staff to provide them with the tools they need to process the children’s files, such as computers, scanners and printers, and you can help!
GWCA staff has traveled to YC, and now SZ, social welfare institutes to meet the children and visit with orphanage staff and foster families. They worked directly with the foster families and orphanage staff to thoroughly evaluate the children’s needs and development. GWCA staff provided developmental assessments of the children and reviews of medical needs and care as well as discussed with orphanage directors what information is important to include when preparing a child’s file.
GWCA staff will be creating reports for each of the children based on their interactions, as well as obtaining more information about the children’s special need, photos and video. Our hope is a better understanding of children’s conditions and development will allow for faster placement of these children. We will keep you updated through blogs, pictures and videos of this special trip.
As a part of our YC SWI (social welfare institute) project, we are assisting the orphanage with the children’s medical exams. We need your help! By donating, or "chipping in," you will receive pictures of the children and the knowledge that you are making an impact in that child's life.
To donate, click here and select "ICAN Hope Orphanages."
NEW! June-September Playground Fund Donation Drive!
During the months of June-September 2011, we are raising money to build playgrounds for the children of the Shenzhen and Chengdu SWIs. Currently, they have very few toys or even a space for these young children to play. We want to encourage the healthy development of these orphans as much as we can, and a time and space to be active and play with friends is essential. These playgrounds are one way we can assist and better the quality of life for them as they wait.
Our goal is to raise $20,000 for the Shenzhen and Chengdu Orphanage Playground Funds, and if 8,000 families donate $25 each during this month, we can reach this goal!
Update on 7/6/11: We have raised $7,220 so far for the Chengdu and Shenzhen playgrounds! We are well on our way! Thank you to our generous donors!
This donation will be made via PayPal. Please create a PayPal account in order to change the life of a special child. With your help, Great Wall can do more to help China’s Waiting Children.
Donate at www.gwca.org/donate/general-donation/donate.php and select "ICAN Hope Orphanages."
Interested in adopting a waiting child from Yuncheng, Shenzhen or Chengdu? Click here to learn more about our China Waiting Child Program.
Nepal
Sponsoring children in need frees them from the cycle of poverty.
Poverty is one of the most pressing problems in Nepal. Nearly 40 percent of the Nepalese population is extremely poor, and almost 50 percent of children are classified as chronically malnourished. Nepal lacks the infrastructure to properly fight the perils of poverty, i.e. malnutrition, achieving sustainable development and controlling population growth; but it is the lack of education that presents one of poverty’s greatest injustices on Nepal’s children. Education is the basic foundation for a good quality of life, and it is a basic human right deserved by all. Click here to find out how you can help.
Uganda
Our representatives in Uganda have a huge heart for children and for the country. Their main project is the development of a fully self-supporting school and facility for orphans in war-torn Northern Uganda, where the teachers receive training and the children, holistic care, including emotional healing, children receive schooling aimed at academic excellence and character building, while providing them with opportunities for a variety of forms of vocational training. Changing lives for the better is at the heart of the process of transformational development.
Uganda is a unique and wonderful country that is beautifully green, unusually fertile, but it has been ravaged by war for many years. Idi Amin’s regime killed hundreds of thousands, followed by the atrocity-ridden war with the LRA rebels for 20 years in the North of the country in Gulu, ending only 3 years ago. There is a huge vacuum for healing, for training and for love. A shocking 58% of the population are only 15 years old and under and child-headed families abound. There are literally millions of orphans, especially in the north of the country where we are focusing, where so many were abducted from their schools, to be forced to become child soldiers or sex-slaves to the officers of the rebels.
Help our representatives in Uganda by providing donations for their orphan school! Go to www.gwca.org/donate/general-donation/donate.php and select "Uganda Orphan School" to donate.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Our representatives in the DRC also tirelessly devote themselves to helping children. Close to 11% of the total child population of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is orphaned. Our representatives have created projects caring for over 100 orphaned children in a small village outside of Kinshasa. They provide the following services to the orphans of all ages:
- Weekly distribution of food
- Distribution of medicine as needed.
- Distribution of other necessities: Clothing, hygiene items, and toys.
- Education: Enrollment of the children in local schools and the supply of uniforms and books. A school building was completed and classes are underway, but supplies
- Agricultural project: Vegetables and pineapples are grown as a micro enterprise to provide income to support the orphan work. Plans are underway for the addition of fish ponds and agricultural training for older boys.
- Vocational training: A training center where the older orphaned children learn agriculture, woodwork and sewing, which will enable them to make a living.
Although the country is rich in abundant natural resources, with its history of civil unrest, it’s an understatement that the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have suffered enormously. Sixty percent of the population of the capital, Kinshasa, are children, and many daily wander the streets scrounging for a living, each day more vulnerable than the last.
Help our representatives in DRC by providing donations for their orphan projects! Go to www.gwca.org/donate/general-donation/donate.php and select "Congo Orphan Project" to donate.
