Report of the Field Visit to Leping Orphanage

April 7, 2002 by Dr. Peggy Gurrad
We visited the Leping Social Welfare Institute on Sunday April 7.  Many of the local government officials accompanied us and they made special efforts to make us feel welcome.  They had silverware at the table for the meals and served their version of sandwiches, hamburgers, fried chicken and french fries, which was very nice of them.  
   
  Ms. Wang is leaving the position as director and taking another position in the Social Welfare Division of Civil Affairs.  A friendly young man, Mr. He, will be taking her place so they both accompanied us.  It was Ms. Wang that gave the welcome speech with an introduction to the orphanage and the Amity projects there.  

They said the orphanage was established in 1998.  They moved into the current (new) building in January of 2001.  They house both elderly and about 60 children and have 31 staff members.

   
  They started working with Amity in 1999 with seven children sponsored in school.

Since then we have sponsored some children for medical needs and surgeries, two of the children will have their surgeries this spring, one with a clubfoot and one with a cleft lip.

They have received a total of 106,000 yuan from Amity.

   
  The orphanage has some additional children with medical needs and has asked for Hugging Grannies.  

There are some older children at the orphanage but in the infant rooms we only saw 12 infants, who were all six months or less in age.  

They were in three rooms - four infants/cribs in each with a caregiver and her bed in each.

   
  So far it doesn’t appear that they are in need of Grannies although the infants do appear thin.  There are bags of formula in each room (supplied by Holt I’ve been told) and the bottles that were made up didn’t appear diluted. 

They also requested some rehab equipment but it doesn’t appear they have enough children at the orphanage to make good use of it.  The handicapped children, especially the two with cerebral palsy, live too far away to come regularly to the orphanage for rehab (one lives 20 km out).
   
  We began sponsoring foster care in 2000 and now have 22 children in sponsorship.  Most of the homes are in the suburbs, but the cost of living is higher in the city than out in the rural area.  Ms. Wang says they are careful when choosing the foster homes.  

Proposed foster parents must love children and have cared well for their own children.  Their own children should be older so that they have time and energy for a young child.

   
  We met some of the foster moms with their children outside, they had been asked to come to the orphanage to meet us.  Two were the toddlers with cerebral palsy; one baby has a sex (gender/genital) disorder and another a clubfoot.  FL (right), a girl who we sponsored for polio surgery and now in foster care and school was there.   She appears to be doing well but her leg brace is too small and another one is needed.  She also has one leg longer than the other and they asked for an orthopedic shoe.  She had two awards (certificates) with her that she’d recently won at school - one for Chinese and one for her overall school record.  
   
  LL and his foster mother (who is the sister-in-law to the foster mom of FL so they live together) were there.  He has epilepsy and perhaps some other problems.  When he wasn’t behaving (tried to smoke someone’s cigarette) they said something was wrong with his brain and he couldn’t control his behavior.  The Amity staff was quite upset that they would say these types of things in front of the child.  They feel that all children are lovely and need love and encouragement and need to be told how wonderful they are.
   
  Some of the other schoolchildren were there including HTZ who has kidney disease.  We sponsored his hospitalization and extensive treatment.  He still requires some ongoing treatment but looks much improved from the photos we have from right after his hospitalization.

We also met WJW, studying the martial arts and two siblings ZXY and ZWH (all in photo on right).  
   
  We then visited some of the foster homes, which were new since Amity’s last visit.  The first was on the short road leading to the orphanage gates and had two children.  Both appeared to be doing well.  The next two children we visited live in a typical country (farmer) old style home outside the city, which has a traditional wedding bed with a phoenix on it.  They were chubby and happy.

The last two homes (three children) were near a wooded park and both apartments were quite pleasant.  The foster parents were loving and the children well attached.  The two children in the last home are both positive for Hepatitis B.  The orphanage staff had brought them back to the orphanage because the nearby kindergarten would not accept them for this reason.  They were very sad and missed their “Grandma and Grandpa” (i.e. - foster parents).  Amity told them they must return the children to this foster home and find a school that would accept them and that Amity would not sponsor their schooling expenses if they remained at the orphanage.  A different kindergarten was found and the children are very happy to be back.  The older child is in kindergarten now and the younger one will start in the fall.
   

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