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Families with Children from China - NY in partnership with the China-based Amity Foundation is in its third year of providing support to children in the Tongling Social Welfare Institute. Our projects there began as a way to honor the memory of Hannah Ashworth, daughter of Ken and Lele, who was adopted in Tongling in June 1996. Tragically, Hannah died just before her second birthday in January 1998. Ken and Lele asked FCCNY to help them establish a fund in Hannah's memory to benefit children in China's orphanages. Working with Amity we were able to designate the Hannah Ashworth Memorial Fund specially to benefit the children in Tongling's "welfare yard". In the first months after Hannah died, family and friends contributed over $7,000 in her memory.
These funds enabled us to introduce a team of four Amity Grandmas to give special care and attention to infants and young children in Tongling. We were able to sponsor children for medical attention and corrective surgeries, and purchase an incubator which shortly after its arrival saved the lives of two premature newborns.
Our support for the children in Tongling continued in 1999 with our sponsoring the Amity Grandmas, paying their stipends for the year, and funding more children for medical care and surgeries. With the donations we received during the year we were also able to pay the costs of contructing a playground, and for two Tongling staff members to attend a four-month course in rehabilitation sponsored by Amity for orphanage caregivers at the Nanjing Special Education College. Amity is conducting a follow-up seminar this month (October 2000) for the 32 caregivers from 16 orphanages, including the two from Tongling, who attended this course in the Fall of 1999.
Our projects in Tongling have expanded significantly in 2000. This year, in partnership with Amity, we have begun to are sponsoring these projects in Tongling in addition to funding the four Grandmas' stipends and medical care and surgeries for nine children in Tongling including two with congenital heart conditions, we have begun to sponsor children from the orphanage to live with in foster families and to attend school in the community. We have distributed a total of $6,790 for the following projects in Tongling this year:
Annual stipends for 4 Grandmas
Foster care fees for 10 children for six months (July - Deccember)
Fees for 8 children to attend school in the community
Costs of medical care and surgery for nine children including two with congenital heart conditions
For the coming year we have already been asked to provide funds to purchase 40 new cribs and beds. Amity has also recommended an intensive care nursing team for Tongling. We expect to receive a specific proposal regarding these new requests as well as renewing the established ongoing programs.
The Amity Foundation provides us with annual accountings of how the funds we send them are used. We receive reports on the children who receive medical treatment, annual reports on the children in school, and semi-annual reports and photographs of the children being sponsored for foster care. Amity makes regular site visits to all of its orphanage projects including at least yearly visits to Tongling. This year, Amity personnel visited in May, and again in June when Wu An An, director of social welfare programs for Amity, accompanied Debbie Kopinski, member of FCC's Charitable Initaitives Committee and former FCC president, and her husband Mark, a financial analyst, on their site visit to Tongling. Debbie's report follows this summary.
We hope this year to offer those wishing to make donations in support of these projects the opportunity to sponsor particular children in foster care or for schooling. The cost of sponsoring a child for foster care would be approximately $40 a month, $470 for a full year. School fees range from $40 a semester or $80 a the year for a child in primary school to $160 a year for a child in a special school for the blind or deaf.
We are heartened in our efforts by the continuing commitment of the Ashworths and their friends, and by the many Tongling families who have contributed so generously to support these projects.
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