Guangxi...here we come...for 2013

Heading to Guangxi again this October!

We can’t wait to meet up with our staff, Matthew, Helen and Lucy who do such wonderful work with orphans, our special children, and our village girls. 

They truly change lives, with your help!

We will also be meeting up with friends from around the world, who help in our work.

             This year we will visit our girls in Guilin, DouAn and Desheng. 

They all come from impoverished areas and homes. 

They all work hard, have a wonderful spirit and are so thankful for the opportunity to go to school. 

Their joy inspires us when we visit them! 

Sponsors have sent photos, letters and gifts, which the girls love to receive. 

And we often bring back small gifts, cards, letters from the girls to their sponsors :-). 

Our Sponsorship Programme truly is a two way experience - giving and sharing between two worlds….and the Ripple Effect for both groups is simply unquantifiable?

We will visit our Grace and Hope for Children, Foster Care children in Nanning and Desheng, bringing them new bags with lots of goodies inside, supplied by their sponsors. 

Each year we take photo updates from adopted children and small gifts to encourage the foster mothers in their wonderful work for these children.

It is such a privilege to be there and be part of this life-changing Teamwork.

This year, we will be taking medical supplies for Butterfly Children's Hospice, another UK run charity, to aid them in their wonderful work for very sick orphans in China - thank you so much to everyone who has donated to help with this.

    We also hope to be be able to help with some surgeries..more on this later.

It is very special for us to be able to meet our Special children in our New Hope Programme and the hard-working birth mothers and foster mothers who struggle to meet their needs.

Here is a wee report from Marion, our Special Needs Volunteer……

Hope4China - Special Needs Support

I currently help Linda and H4C by sending out all the reports for the Yongning children in foster care  with Grace and Hope for Children. . All the children in the Yongning SWI have special needs of some sort - many have quite complex learning, physical and medical needs.

I enjoy reading all the reports before passing them on to the sponsors and look forward to hearing about how the children are doing. Like most of us, I especially enjoy seeing the photos of the children and watching them as they grow and develop new skills.

However, as I looked through the last batch of reports and photos I was saddened to read about one child in particular who had been suffering for some time from terrible toothache which they hadn’t been able to tell anyone about until they had become quite ill and had to go to hospital. I was upset to think that this child, and probably many others like them, were suffering because of poor dental hygiene. We all know how painful toothache can be. Imagine if you had that pain day after day and had no way to tell anyone… I had also seen children in photos with drool on their chins and T-shirts. Occasionally there would be a foster carer in the background holding an old towel which I presumed they were using to wipe the drool away. Sometimes a face cloth was tucked down the neck of the child’s T-shirt. The foster families undoubtedly do the best they can in hard pressed situations but the images of these children stuck in my mind.

I was determined to try and help in some little way. Education and practical support for foster families is desperately needed but sadly, from here in Scotland, I knew there wasn’t a huge amount I could offer. However, I spoke with Linda and came up with a few practical things we could do to make a small start.

We did a little bit of fundraising to purchase some Collis Toothbrushes which Linda will take out to China with her in October. Collis toothbrushes are very helpful for people with disabilities and are recommended by dentists. They have curved bristles to brush the sides and edges of the teeth at the same time. More importantly they brush the gum line. They are fairly easy to use and are very effective. Of course, they are also expensive at £7 each. Hopefully the foster families will use these with some of the children, however we will need a constant supply of these brushes to keep up the good work once the brushing starts.  

The second thing I decided to do was make some ‘dribble napkins’ for the older children. These are fairly standard pieces of kit for children who need them here in the UK and are much more hygienic and ‘cooler’ than the towels and facecloths I’d seen in the photos.

The girl’s napkins were straightforward. I bought some towelling and some pink spotty fabric which would do nicely for girls of any age and got my sewing machine out. 

Fabric for the older boy’s proved more of a challenge! Finding something age appropriate and attractive eluded me then a friend of Linda’s came to the rescue with some nearly new boys T-shirts with perfect images on the front. Another couple of nights at the sewing machine and I’d produced some great looking napkins (even if I say so myself!)

These will also wing their way to Yongning in October with Linda and hopefully, with a little encouragement, the children will use and feel the benefit of these too.

So… where there is a will there’s a way. I’m hoping my small contribution can help get the ball rolling. Is there anything you feel you could do? Can you sew or knit? Could you make more napkins? Can you help with the Collis toothbrush appeal? If so, contact Linda Greenshields or check out the Hope4China Blog at http://hope4china.blogspot.co.uk/

Thanks for reading.

Marion Robertson

So THANK YOU to the many , many people and groups who have helped to bring together all that we need to make this trip and make a difference. 

  You are part of the Team, and we could not do it without you all!!!

Much Love

Linda x