GaoMing Welfare Institute, Guangzhou,
Guangdong Province, China - Page 2

 
There are 63 children cared for in the Home.  Thirteen care givers take turns looking after all the children all day long with a salary of about 550 yuan (Chinese dollars) a month and no other benefits.  About 450 orphans are in foster care at present.  Since the Home was founded in 1952, there are some adult orphans working and living in the town who come back to pay a visit once a while.
 
Being driven by poor funding and encouraged by the policy, the Home is now going to society by adopting some measures; asking for donation through advocacy and opening a clinic for the children and the old aged inside and outside the Home.  This can save a lot of expenses on clinic treatment for the residents as well as make money for improvements on the Home by providing service for the neighborhood.  One doctor and two nurses are working at the clinic.
 
Now we are back to the Home again and allowed to take pictures and make video.  "Parents are eagerly awaiting to take a look at the home where their beloved children were taken care of and living in the first months of their life.  This could be one of the ways to do advocacy internationally" I told Mr. Li at the lunch table.  I was not able to take any photos before Mr. Li came back even though we were allowed to pay a pre-visit to the children's section lead by Ms. Liang.
 
Lead by Mr. Li this time, we changed into slippers but not white uniforms since there are not enough for visitors, and walked across a hallway and stepped into a big room.  There three older handicapped children are walking around.  Ms. Luo mentioned earlier that a couple of older children went to the kindergarten across the lawn.  Of all the children, the oldest and only boy, (seven years old), in their care avoids us.  All the other young children, (from four months old to fourteen months old,) are rolling in their walkers, (the same as I saw at the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institution), here and there with their bared feet on the ceramic floor.  They are happy and smile once we touch and hold them.  All the infants are in one section, some of the babies are so young and tiny.  Their eyes and little fists are closed tightly and red faces are dotted with baby wrinkles and frowned eyebrows.
 
Every child is wearing split pants with a cotton rubber band on their hips, which is used for holding on their diapers.  It is time to change the infants. Muoyan and I are helping change several of infants.  Three mamas are busy changing, non-stop changing and washing, while also checking on the babies to see if they had covered themselves with blankets while waving their arms and legs.
 
The hall room is about 45 feet long and 20 feet wide, as measured by my foot.  Over fifty cribs are arranged in six rows and divided by a huge counter that is piled with a mountain-like pile of diapers.  A mama is folding big pieces of gauze into small shape of diapers for changing infants.  On both ends of the hall room there are two small rooms.  One is used as an activity room where a dozen of infant baskets are arranged against the wall.  Two of the older handicapped children, (3 and 5 years old, both deaf, one mental retarded), are rocking the small ones in the baskets.  The other room is used as a sanitary room.  There are several sinks for washing babies and a table for filling formula into bottles.  A mama is feeding young children sitting in walkers with vitamin water.  All of these children had their lunch of rice or thick rice meal at the time when we came for the pre-visit.
 

- Continued On Page 3 -

INDEX          1    2    3