Report 05-12-2009

China One Year Later

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director

One year after a devastating 8.0 earthquake destroyed so many lives in Sichuan, China, the world is solemnly remembering thousands of victims who lost their lives. Even as we at Half the Sky Foundation mark this anniversary with sadness, we are also marking it with hope and with thanks to Global Giving’s donors, who opened their hearts to the children of Sichuan. Your generous support or our Children’s Earthquake fund has enabled us to make great strides helping the children most traumatized by the quake—children who lost parents, schoolmates, friends, homes, and even the desire to smile--move on with their lives.

In the last year Half the Sky established six Big Top Children’s Centers in Dujiangyan, a small town near the quake’s epicenter that houses 100,000 refugees in temporary camp communities established in the months following the earthquake.

The primary purpose of our Big Tops is to create a safe space, a gathering place for children where they can find refuge from the disaster, express their fears and anxieties, and begin to heal. Our partners at the National Center for School Trauma and Bereavement tell us that these opportunities are critical for the children. The children do receive counseling at the BigTop, but it feels incidental – they come to play and to have a place that is their own and to feel safe.

Our giant “Big Top” tents have proved hugely popular with children and the entire community. The BigTops offer preschools, after-school music, art and sports (ping pong, badminton, martial arts, basketball) and other therapeutic activities for school-age children. Most sites have 6 teachers, two caregivers, two supervisors and security guards, and serve between 500 and 1000 children. The centers offer preschool in the mornings, as well as after school activities, including art, dance, sports, English, games, library, etc.

When we established our Big Tops, we planned on running them until permanent housing was built for the area’s earthquake refugees. We were so excited to learn recently that we may be able to close the Big Tops early because construction of housing for refugees is ahead of schedule. If we are able to close the Big Tops ahead of schedule, we will use the money we would have used to operate the Big Tops to provide additional services for the children most impacted by the quake. We have started working on a plan to ensure that children who lost both parents in the quake (most of whom are living with their grandparents) continue to receive support, and a plan to provide services at newly built schools near the epicenter.

When there is a disaster of such a large scale, there is a moment in time when the world comes together to assist those stricken. There is moment-by-moment media coverage. There is a tremendous outpouring of love and concern and donations of every kind. What we most appreciate about Global Giving’s donors is that they responded so generously to our project that is helping the children long after the world’s attention has moved on to the next story.

We closed Half the Sky’s Children’s Earthquake Fund after we met our fundraising goal, but we are actively fundraising for other projects for orphaned children in China.

We are continuing its work providing permanent foster care for children with special needs who will not be adopted: http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1500/proj1448a.html

And we are embarking on a new project to provide medical care for orphaned children in China who need specialized treatment: We hope you will be able to help us with our ongoing work to bring the love of family to children who have lost theirs.

Once again, huge, heartfelt thanks to Global Giving’s donors, who have helped so many children in Sichuan learn to play and smile again.

With love and thanks,

Jenny Bowen
Executive Director
Half the Sky Foundation

Report 01-29-2009

Children’s Earthquake Fund Is Closed

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Fou

Dear Global Giving Friends,

I want to offer my sincere thanks to all of you who have contributed to our Children’s Earthquake Fund. The response to help children orphaned and displaced by the quake in Sichuan has just been amazing.

Thanks to your generosity, I am very pleased to tell you that the Fund is now closed. Our generous donors have provided sufficient funding to support six Big Tops for children’s disaster relief and healing for the next 3 years!

We have followed through on our commitment not to forget the children of Sichuan and you have helped make it happen.

With love and gratitude,

Jenny

Report 06-25-2008

The Big Top And The Torch

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Hello Friends,

A little over a month after Sichuan’s May 12th earthquake, we opened Half the Sky’s first BigTop children’s activity center (with preschool, art classes and counseling) in a refugee camp in Dujiangyan, near the quake’s epicenter. In a town that has experienced so much sadness, the opening was a happy, festive occasion to welcome a new oasis for fun and support for the children and the community. On hand for the opening were city and ministry officials, child trauma experts Marleen Wong and Suh Hsiao Chen of National Center for School Trauma and Bereavement, and psychologists representing our newest partners in this important effort, the Mental Health Centre of West China Hospital at Sichuan University.

The experts offered some training for assembled volunteers and, as at every celebration worth its salt in China, a group of adorable children sang and danced for the crowd. For a brief moment, the earthquake seemed a world away.
http://www.halfthesky.org/work/earthquake08-healing.php#part2

Even before the opening the BigTop had become a magnet for children, a place where they can play and share even their most troubling earthquake experiences. A few days earlier, when the furniture was being painted, curious children arrived again at the tent and were disappointed not to be allowed in because of the paint fumes. Half the Sky staffers couldn’t bear to send the children away so they set up a table outside the tent, on the concrete platform (above the mud) where the children played with bubbles and toys.

Three little girls made themselves comfortable and the oldest, a nine-year-old, immediately put a plastic doll face down under a toy table to protect the doll from an earthquake. She told her friends and a Half the Sky staffer about the day of the quake, when her teacher ran out of the classroom, expecting the class to follow. Instead, the children sat at their desks until they heard their teacher yelling that they should get out as fast as they could.

All three girls then started cooking with toy utensils, chopping up leaves with a toy cleaver to make soup. When asked why they were only making vegetables, one girl said solemnly: “Because we are very poor. This is all we have.”

Another girl, around 10, took advantage of the ample art supplies in the tent to draw a girl with pigtails and a rainbow. She solemnly explained that she wants to be a mathematician and the drawing was not a self portrait. It was a drawing of her best friend, who after the earthquake left the area and now there is no way to contact her: “I am afraid I’ll never see her again.”

While the volunteers and staff at the tent will provide “psychological first aid” for the children, they will also refer children to professionals at the Mental Health Centre of West China Hospital at Sichuan University when first aid is not enough. Children like a terrified 6 year old girl who, after 50 hours, was the only survivor rescued from her primary school. Protected by the body of her teacher, she survived with minimal physical injuries. But no one could protect her from the emotional trauma of waiting for help for so many hours in the school where her friends and her teacher died and - after all that - learning that her father did not survive.

Of the many volunteers who helped in the tent or attended our trainings none is more impressive than a group of eight survivors from the collapsed Juyuan Middle School, where perhaps 900 children died. Whether pitching in to sweep rainwater from the BigTop before its drainage problems were fixed, or helping to set up toys on newly painted shelves, or playing with children, these impressive, hardworking teenagers have all decided that they want to focus on helping others rather than on what they lost on the day their school collapsed around them: “We received a lot of help from others. Now we can help. When we help people it helps us,” says one of the students, who gathered in a circle in Half the Sky’s BigTop.

One smiling boy bears the most obvious scar of that day—a gash that took fourteen stitches to close. It runs alongside his eye down to his mouth.
Like all of the children who survived, he is mindful of friends who did
not: “At first I felt guilty that I survived. Now because I am volunteering I feel more comfortable.”

The students from Juyuan also provide an example of what was perhaps NCSTB’s Dr. Marleen Wong’s most surprising message to the caregivers she trained in Sichuan. In the midst of the all-too-obvious devastation and pain wrought by the earthquake, Wong introduced new research about a phenomenon called “post-traumatic growth.” A small percentage of children, says Wong, will make positive life changes that are a direct result of a trauma or a disaster. These are the children, says Wong who become “wise beyond their years, more mature, have a deeper appreciation of life,” in the wake of a tragedy. “They have new values and life priorities.”

One Juyuan student explains that not only has he resolved to volunteer in the wake of the earthquake, he has also resolved to change his life:
“Before the earthquake I was not into studying. Now I think it is the most important thing I can do so I can help my country. I can bring hope to the people in Sichuan.”

The day after BigTop #1 opened, I had the great honor of carrying the Olympic Torch on behalf of China’s orphaned children, especially those newly orphaned in Sichuan and Chongqing. Fifty preschoolers from our Half the Sky programs in Chengdu and Chongqing joined me on a rainy Sunday in Wanzhou, Chongqing. It was an exhilarating and wacky time. And we did manage to tell the children’s story – at least to the Chinese media (in the end, no foreign media was allowed.) We were on the front page of the China Daily and featured on national TV news. We didn’t quite go global, but it has been wonderful to hear from so many Chinese citizens who want to help orphaned children. Children in their own communities that they didn’t even know existed.

Slowly but steadily, Half the Sky is beginning to find ways to recover from the disaster too. Although we are now firmly committed to helping the newly orphaned and displaced children of Sichuan heal and hopefully find their own “post-traumatic growth,” we are ever-mindful of the many thousands of children to whom we’ve already made a long-term commitment.
Right now, our first Blue Sky provincial training is underway in Hubei Province. Over 100 caregivers from welfare institutions where Half the Sky has no programs are at our model center in Wuhan learning about HTS’
approach to providing family-like nurturing care to orphaned children. We are now offering Blue Sky training sponsorships – a great way to help us reach our goal to put a caring adult in the life of every orphaned child http://give.halfthesky.org/prostores/servlet/Detail?no=90

This fall, funds permitting, Half the Sky will open new Blue Sky Model Centers in Xian, Harbin, Shenyang and Qingdao. We are no longer accepting applications for this year’s volunteer build but we dearly hope that you will consider sponsoring a child or supporting the new model centers in other ways.

You have been so tremendously generous during these awful weeks. Now, as the Sichuan story fades from the news, we are even more grateful that you continue to remember the children whose struggle is just beginning. I don’t know how we can ever thank you enough for all you have done and continue to do. I hope that watching our progress as we work to rebuild young lives – in Sichuan and all over China – will be thanks enough. You know we will always keep you informed!

Report 06-13-2008

The Earthquake – a month later…and news on the Torch

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

June 13th, 2008

Hello Friends,

We got a call today telling us that, for security reasons, our Torch leg is now scheduled a day earlier. I will be running in Wanzhou, Chongqing, on Sunday, June 15 - Father’s Day. I will still run for the children, especially those of Sichuan. Somehow, we will manage to bring the children there. I hope it doesn’t change again!

I just arrived in Chongqing from Sichuan. Yesterday was the one month anniversary of the earthquake. We traveled several hours to a hard-hit mountain town in Beichuan, Hongbaizhen, and worked with children and volunteer teachers. I have added many photos to our website.

A couple of weeks earlier, we braved the rock-strewn roads and broken bridges of Hongbaizhen to deliver relief goods to the children. The whole town was in shock. As painful as yesterday’s visit was, we began to see signs that the town will slowly begin to come back to life. Our communications director, Patricia King gave me this moving report: An 8-year-old boy stands in front of the pile of rubble that had once been his school and explains that he was the last student to have been pulled out alive. When the earth shook, he was one of the obedient children sitting with arms crossed at their desks—some naughty boys were still outside, safe on the playground. For ten frantic minutes, trapped between a piece of concrete and brick on the second floor, he waited. His cries couldn’t be heard over the wailing adults, but finally when the crowd outside the collapsing school quieted down they heard him and came to rescue him with their bare hands.

In the first days after the quake, he couldn’t return to the pile of debris that had once been his three-storey school, but with the help of a volunteer teacher from his tent school, he has visited the site several times and now is not afraid when he comes back. Today, at 2:28, exactly one month after his world shattered, the boy and another child from the tent school placed their hands on their hearts, then bowed three times, saying goodbye to their friends who died at the Hongbaizhen Primary School. Finally these brave survivors vowed: “We will live our lives as best we can.”

In Hongbaizhen, an isolated mountain town where it took three days for the Air Force to make it on foot past a collapsed bridge while the cries of children trapped under heavy rubble grew weaker and weaker and then stopped forever, the pain is palpable. But one month after the earthquake children and adults are also expressing their grief, working to find a way to cope with their pain, and taking the first steps to rebuilding lives. Sitting under a tree outside a tent school only 100 yards from the collapsed Hongbaizhen Middle School, it took only minutes before a group of middle school girls, two with their heads bent into their arms and one sitting up straight, weeping and sobbing, opened their hearts to Vancouver psychologist Dan Zhang and University of Minnesota psychologist Pinian Chang, both of whom were also once students in China. A 14-year-old twin, who aches for her one-minute-younger sister. She escaped the building, but her sister didn’t. Finally her sister was pulled out of the rubble, but with no medical care available, her family listened helpless as she spoke her last words: “I hurt. I hurt. I am so tired. I think I am dying.” Now her grieving sister refuses to go to any school with more than one storey—she tried a middle school with two stories and dropped out after two agonizing days. Still she is trying to take comfort from “Invisible Wings,” the song she and her sister loved and sang together. “I know I’ve always had a pair of invisible wings that take me flying and give me hope.”

Two girls mourning their brother, a 10th grader, and a nimble athlete as well as a good student, who made it out of the building. But he went back to rescue three crying girls only to die when another piece of the building gave way. One of his sisters is tormented by regrets—why did she brush off her brother, who wanted to talk to her a few days before the earthquake when she wasn’t in the mood? Both sisters know that their brother died a hero, but they miss their older brother and cry for him as an adult volunteer encircles them in a hug to try to ease the pain. Meanwhile inside a white tent decorated with balloons and tinsel, a crowd of volunteers hungry for help sit at shiny wooden desks salvaged from the collapsed middle school. Executive Director Jenny Bowen tells them that Half the Sky’s greatest contribution to helping in Sichuan will be to provide training for caregivers. She urges them to identify adults in the local community who can be trained to provide consistent, long-term help for the children long after the last volunteers have gone back to their homes. When she tells them that Half the Sky is committed to working in Sichuan for “at least five years,” they burst into applause. It soon becomes clear why the applause is so heartfelt. These volunteers, some recently arrived and some soon to go back home to their own families, have bonded closely with the children and they know the children will need support for a long time. One wears a beautiful shell bracelet made for her by one of the girls who has become like a little sister. Another favored volunteer’s arms, face, and t-shirt have been decorated by playful children using colored markers. Both the volunteers and the children who cling to them are finding it difficult to even conceive of their leaving. Psychologist Marleen Wong and psychiatric social worker Suh Chen Hsiao of the National Center for Trauma & Bereavement tell the volunteers they have given the children a great gift by providing a school and a routine for the children. Research shows that children who go back to school soon after a disaster fare better than children who have no routine for a long period of time. They also praise the volunteers for developing such strong bonds with the children and then urge those who are leaving to find a new local volunteer they trust to work together with the children before they leave. They also urge the volunteers themselves to get together after they leave Hongzbaizhen to talk through their feelings among peers who understand what it is to try to provide comfort to traumatized children living in a tent school surrounded by rubble and soldiers wearing white masks spreading disinfectant on the site where so many of their friends died.

The volunteers, some with tears in their eyes, explain why they are worried for the children and feel helpless because they cannot help them more. They worry about a 5-year-old girl with a scar on her back from being buried by debris who screams whenever she sees a collapsed building, an unavoidable sight in this mostly leveled town. A thirteen year old boy, the last to be pulled out of the middle school, refuses to come to the tent school so close to where he was trapped. A six year-old boy whose two brothers died, draws a picture with cherries because his brothers liked cherries, but this volunteer thinks he is too calm, toomatter-of-fact: “I am so worried about him. I ache for him.” Wong tells them they have done well. “Do not underestimate how much good kindness can do.” She recommends that they continue to reach out to the 13-year-old afraid to go to school. Visit him at home, offer him some water, bring him some notes from his friends. For the 5-year-old, try to have her draw or tell why she is screaming and help her learn to breathe deeply when she is afraid so that slowly, slowly the screams become less frequent and finally go away. And for the too-calm child, sometimes children have a delayed reaction, which is why long-term help is socrucial: “We have to wait for the child.”

For the Hongbaizhen parents heartbroken by the loss of their children, there was no delayed reaction—they have expressed their grief since the day of the earthquake and they still show it in their eyes that well up with tears even when they express nascent hope for a future life. On this one month anniversary one tiny mom, her hair flecked with gray, shows visitors cell phone photos of the two children she lost. She lowers her arms to illustrate the unthinkable, the collapse of her daughters’ school.She walks slowly away, but not without first thanking Half the Sky and everyone else who has come to help. It is that support, she says, that has recently made it possible for her to start to at least imagine a future for herself without her children. And a short climb up one of the mountains that made Hongbaizhen renowned for its beauty before it became renowned for its suffering, parents are still trying to comfort their children, who died four weeks ago.

At the four-tiered hillside cemetery with hundreds of children’s freshly made graves, parents have laid things that their children once loved—a pink backpack, wrapped candy, spicy Sichuanese snacks, a big teddy bear and a stuffed monkey. A weeping dad injured in the quake, his arm still in a sling, burns paper money and incense and apologizes to his child. “I am so sorry. This is the first time I could come. I hope you don’t mind,” while his wife wails the lament of every parent who has wished that they could have saved the life of the child even at the cost of their own: “Mommy is here for you. How could you go before us? Please wait for us.”

Report 06-11-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - June 10

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

June 10th, 2008

Dear Friends,

Since I last wrote, we’ve been working toward developing a more well-defined plan for addressing the emotional needs of so many thousands of traumatized children. We know we can’t help them all, but we are making certain that, using the resources you are providing us, we will maximize our effectiveness.

Under the guidance of trauma experts from National Center for School Trauma and Bereavement and volunteer pediatric psychologists from China, the US and Canada, our field staff has been training caregivers in shelters and camps and talking with many, many children. What we have learned has informed our long-term plans, which already have tentative approval from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

In the next couple of months, with your help, we will be creating giant tent “Big Top” Children’s Centers in temporary (estimate is 2-3 years) refugee camps at Dujiangyan, near the quake epicenter, to help the children as the town is rebuilt. Each will offer HTS preschool, after school counseling and art classes and other therapeutic activities for school-age children, as well as counseling and training for caregivers, teachers, parents and foster parents. The first “Big Top” is scheduled to open in QinJian camp on Saturday.

Funds permitting, we will also be creating new permanent children’s community centers in six quake-affected towns as well as setting up Family Villages, supporting traditional foster care, and other HTS programs for orphaned children who are able to remain in their communities, providing long-term support for thousands of children.

I stole away for a couple of days in order to write our proposal to the Ministry. In my absence, HTS communications director, Patricia King, wrote this report:

A Machine to Save the World from Earthquakes

“When I grow up I want to be a scientist so I can invent a machine that will predict earthquakes hours before they happen and I can take all the children to safety. And I will give the machine to everybody in the world for free.”

“All I want is to go home.”

“I want to be with my family.”

“I want the earthquake to be gone so we can be happy again.”

Who wouldn’t want to make these wishes of some of the youngest earthquake survivors come true? The wishes of children struggling to come to terms with a disaster that shattered everything they counted on—the rock solid earth they walked on, the mountains that were supposed to loom majestically above, not break apart, raining dangerous rocks, and most of all the comfort of their homes and their parents and teachers.

The children now attend a “tent school” in the large refugee shelter in Dujiangyan designed to house 15,000 people displaced by the earthquake. They are taught by volunteers in prefabricated, vinyl walled, 9×12 classrooms, each one packed with 40+ students.

The walls are decorated with children’s artwork. It is art that depicts the kind of world the children would like to live in, the kind of world they now know can never be. In this town where the most prestigious middle school collapsed and killed so many bright, ambitious students, one child drew a mobile school complete with a lookout telescope and radar to pick up any sign of danger. The school is floating on what looks like a cloud or a flame that can move it out of danger should the earth below start to shake again.

The Red Thread

A short distance from the refugee shelter and school, on a muddy, rock-strewn field, a huge, white tent with arched, plastic windows stands on high ground above the fast-moving Minjiang River. A large Half the Sky logo with its girl holding a red thread announces that this tent has been provided by donors all over the world, moved to help the children of Sichuan to whom they are connected by the proverbial red thread. One, yellow Ikea delivery truck and one truck with a small Half the Sky logo and the words: “Everything Donated to the Disaster Area” bump their way onto the field to deliver supplies for Half the Sky’s first Big Top Children’s Center. In a situation that is repeated over and over in Sichuan when people learn that Half the Sky is here to help the children, the Ikea truck was able to make the delivery only after a compassionate manager made lots of phone calls to bend the rules to allow the truck to deliver to a heavily damaged town.

All week Half the Sky’s field supervisors and other caregivers have been receiving training about how to provide “psychological first aid” to children in the wake of this disaster. Today the work is more familiar, the kind of work Half the Sky has been doing for 10 years during “builds” when rooms in government welfare institution are transformed into colorful, child-friendly Half the Sky centers.

It becomes clear very quickly though that there are unusual logistical issues for this first-ever tent build. The six inch concrete floor that anchors the tent is solid, but two puddles have collected inside after the last big rain storm. Straw brooms appear so the staff can sweep out the water and strategize about how to engineer a fix so the tent will stay dry during this rainy season in Sichuan. They are helped by a contractor from Guangzhou, who is in Sichuan to build roads wherever needed, including a road that will make it easier to walk from the huge refugee shelter and school to Half the Sky’s Big Top.

It is Dragon Boat Festival day and a holiday, but nevertheless workers on ladders bring electricity to the tent, hanging energy-saving bulbs from the aluminum rafters and setting up the fans that will cool the during the increasingly steamy Sichuan summer.

As the small chairs and tables, shelves for toys are assembled, and bright, turquoise chairs unfolded, the tent starts to look more like a Half the Sky center, a kid-friendly haven in an earthquake-ravaged town where the long task of removing rubble and rebuilding has only just begun. The toys will stay in their boxes for the children to open. There are puppet theaters, a toy kitchen with pots and pans and dishes, a doll house with a mom, dad and children. And there are lots of toy trucks and bulldozers, doctor kits, and uncharacteristically for a Half the Sky center, lots of soldiers, who were the first to reach Dujiangyan and other towns near the epicenter to help.

Nothing is the same anymore…

In Shifang City, Half the Sky’s Child Development Director Ma Lang approached a woman reading alone in a communal shelter where people were cooking and eating and two preschoolers were playing with water, “trying to be children.” The woman looked so young that Lang thought she might be a high school student, but she told Ma that she is a 27-year-old math teacher. There was a “calm coolness” in her eyes so MaLang was surprised that her eyes welled up with tears when Ma Lang asked: “How are you doing?” She answered sadly: “It is tough. I have been here all my life. Nothing is the same anymore. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the fields, the crops. Everything else has changed,” she said.

The teacher told Ma Lang that after the earthquake she helped escort all 41 children from her classroom to safety. Then she spent six, panicked hours that seemed like a year looking for her mother and her three-year-old daughter. Ma Lang put a comforting hand on her shoulder as they both found paper tissue and the woman continued with her story.

Then the Air Force came and carefully removed all the children’s school bags and clothes from the heavily damaged building. “It was very dangerous.” When the teachers tried to help, the soldiers said, “No, it is our job.” When the teachers volunteered to at least stand by the building to collect some of the children’s prized possessions, the soldiers said, “No. It is our job. You stay away from the building. It is not safe.” After retrieving the children’s things, the Air Force built a new, prefabricated school named the “Air Force Loves Children School” in six, working-round-the-clock days.

The young math teacher told Ma Lang that such help and such kindness from the Air Force and “so many people like you” has “made a huge difference” in the lives of those who survived the quake. But despite her gratitude for the help and her relief that her mother and three-year-old are alive, the woman told Ma Lang that there have been “many times” during the last weeks when she has wished that she hadn’t survived.

For Ma Lang, who has been working in the field since right after the earthquake, it is “overwhelming” to learn how many children and their caregivers need emotional support, even those “lucky” ones like this teacher, whose child and whose students survived the earthquake.

The psychologists who are helping Half the Sky train field workers stress that patience is key when working with traumatized children or their adult caregivers.

Report 06-04-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - June 4

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

It was a Children’s Day with not enough children.

Here in Sichuan, Sunday was filled with both sadness and hope. For those parents who lost their only child, it was a day of immeasurable anguish. For those families still whole or partially intact, it was a time of sad resolve to get on with the task of rebuilding their lives and the lives of their children. For children who survived but lost a parent, schoolmates, teachers, home, the holiday toys and candies were small comfort. Still, life goes on and the children will slowly begin to heal. They will need help.

It is now reported that 7,000 children died on May 12.

But many, many thousands more survived. Thankfully, the numbers truly orphaned are much smaller than first believed.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Civil Affairs told us that 420 children are confirmed orphaned. The government continues to search for living relatives of another 1072. Those numbers, though, represent only a small portion of the many thousands of children who need help.

Children who have lost one parent. Children grieving for their lost parents even as they have been reunited with their grandparents or other extended family. The estimated 16,000 children who were injured during the quakes. And countless others children who are struggling to deal emotionally with the horror they have experienced. These are children whose lives were really just beginning—and now must begin again.

Thanks to your generosity, we have helped the surviving children by bringing them much-needed supplies, including supplies to the stranded children in the isolated mountains of Aba, where roads were buried under landslides, and to the children of Leigu, whose villages were threatened by flood.

Now that we have completed that first phase of our earthquake relief effort, it is time for Half the Sky to help the youngest survivors begin to heal emotionally. Though we have never provided emotional support for children in the wake of a natural disaster, we have over the last decade provided that support for 15,000 children living in social welfare institutions who have lost their families - delivering such care is the essence of Half the Sky.

In preparation for our first workshop with the US National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement, our field staff spent last observing and interacting with children living in temporary shelters and welfare institutions. While the world is rejoicing that they survived, many of these children are mourning the friends and family members who did not and wondering why they are the “lucky” ones. Others are in shock, unable to face the pain of loss of those they depended on most.

At a shelter in Chengdu, one middle schooler who was evacuated from Wenchuan told our team:

“The first floor of the school disappeared. The second floor became the first floor. Our teachers were too busy helping us to have time for their own children. We carried two injured students from the collapsed building to a tent on a mountain top. We stayed in the mountains after that and lived on potatoes that weren’t ripe and shared 2-3 Bottles of water among more than 60 of us every day. Later, two students died in the tent. It rained and rained. We knew there could be landslides because we knew a big aftershock could happen at any time, but we didn’t know what to fear any more.”

And our staff filed this heartbreaking report from the Zitong Children’s Welfare Institute:

“A boy arrived at the institution with a bandage on one side of his head. The staff gave him a name and estimated that he is two years old. Every time the institution gate opens he runs to it and says “baba,” “mama,” the only words he knows. The expression of his face is one of sadness and fear without security. There was no smile on this face during the whole time we were there.”

On Monday, in cooperation with the MCA and the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement, we held our first Sichuan Caregiver Training Project workshop at the Chengdu CWI, a milestone on that long road to bring emotional relief to the children. While we tried to keep the first workshop small, because we knew that we needed to have time and interactive discussion in order to make plans for the next steps, it was not possible. The need for caregiver support is just too great. By the workshop’s second day, we included 90 volunteers who’d been working in shelters as well as administrators from the two largest shelters in Chengdu. There will be no shortage of trainees as our field staff and experts head out into hard-hit areas today.

We know that with this workshop our new work is just beginning .we have pledged to work with other organizations and with government to help the children in Sichuan for as long as help is needed. By the end of this week, we expect to be able to report more fully on our midterm and longterm plans in Sichuan. We anticipate that the work may last for 2-3 years. Thank you!

With love,

Jenny

Ps – For our many new friends - Half the Sky is a global NGO that establishes and operates programs that provide emotional and educational support for orphaned children living in 38 government-run social welfare institutions in China.

Half the Sky does not operate orphanages. It is not an adoption agency.

We exist for China’s children.

Report 05-28-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - May 26-28

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

First, an update on the airlift to remote Aba Prefecture. No less than 40 uniformed soldiers arrived at the Chengdu CWI yesterday to load two big trucks with emergency goods for the 1,000 stranded children of Aba. We’re waiting now for confirmation of the air drop.

This week HTS also erected a giant BigTop at the Chengdu CWI to aid with intake and shelter for new arrivals.

Ma Lang and Yang Lei, two of our intrepid team members traveled to Leigu, in hard-hit Beichuan, along with some young volunteers from the Jiuzhou Stadium. They knew the situation was dire, as this is the site of one of the “quake lakes” threatening to overflow. But they also knew there were more than 2,000 children of all ages in those villages and they needed help. I am so happy and relieved to tell you that the mission was a huge success!

I have placed photos of raising the big tent, loading relief goods for Aba and delivery of goods to Leigu on our website. Please visit http://www.halfthesky.org/work/earthquake08.php

On Saturday, after we complete delivery of balance of requested relief goods, we will erect a second and even larger BigTop tent in the largest refugee settlement at Dujiangyan City, close to the epicenter of the earthquake. This will become a huge Half the Sky children’s activity center for refugee children of all ages, complete with furnishings, toys, computers, areas for art and dramatic play and reading and quiet talk, everything that a HTS center offers. With your help, this center will serve thousands of children as their lives and homes are rebuilt. And, although we’ve already been busily working and planning, it will mark the official beginning of the second phase of our efforts - addressing the current and longterm emotional needs of the children.

I want to tell you more about the Sichuan Caregiver Training Project that HTS has launched in partnership with the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the US-based National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement. Thanks to one of our supporters, we were put in touch with David Schonfeld,director of the NCSCB and perhaps the world’s foremost authority on child bereavement.
Since its inception after 9/11, the NCSCB has counseled and been a resource for governments, schools and organizations, especially those confronted by large numbers of children traumatized by disaster. From hurricanes to wars to school shootings, this organization has a long history and understanding of child trauma, what to expect and how best to respond.

Half the Sky is so fortunate to have the NCSCB’s help as we embark on this journey. There are so many unknowns for all of us - We at HTS have never tried to provide services mid-disaster - and our advisers from the NCSCB have not much experience working in China. Knowing we can rely on each other's expertise, I feel confident that HTS, and other NGOs that we hope will join us in this effort, can have substantial impact, both in these early days and down the road as the long process of recovery unfolds.

During the weekend, I toured hard-hit towns, children’s shelters and orphanages with the MCA, trying to get an overview of the situation. HTS’ director, child development, Ma Lang has, of course, been in Sichuan since May 16 on our behalf and was able to give us a great deal of information and insight. This week, a team of seasoned HTS field supervisors, one from each of our programs, is doing a more detailed assessment under the guidance of Ma Lang: Zhang Yuxia, Yang Lei, Zhou Dan and Anni Wang. They will give us their full report on Sunday, but here’s an excerpt from Anni on the first day of observation. The need for trauma-training for caregivers is immense:

“In the tent school, as I was looking around the room, my eyes caught a little girl who was holding her school bag very tightly. She had one of the saddest faces I have ever seen and it felt like she didn’t want to be in the classroom. She kept holding her bag and looking at the exit behind, as if she were waiting for someone. When the ‘fun activity class’ started again, she still held her bag, but then later put it down and tried to follow the teacher’s instructions. She was one of the shortest children in class but sat in the back row.

“In the ‘fun class’, the teacher kept saying: “if you are happy, smile…. And clapping his hands and he said that a few times walking round the room but the little girl I mentioned didn’t smile. Not even once. I was not sure which of the children in the room were smiling because they were happy or because they were sort of asked to smile. However, I suppose the fun activities will be a distraction (at least for the time being) for children who may have lost a parent or close relative. When I was leaving the room, I waved to the little girl and she sadly waved back.”

On June 2-3, we will host a workshop for all HTS field supervisors, program directors and representatives from the MCA and CAB as well as two expert field advisors who will supervise field work in the next phase.

Leading the workshop on behalf of NCSCB: Robin Gurwitch, PhD - Professor in Dept. of Pediatrics at University of Oklahoma, Program Coordinator for the US National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement; Marleen Wong, PhD - Director of Crisis Counseling and Intervention Services at the Los Angeles Unified School District; and Suh Chen Hsiao, LCSW PPSC - Psychiatric Social Worker, Team Leader at the Los Angeles Unified School District, Specialist in Crisis Intervention.

On June 4-14, with expert advisors - Pi-Nian Chang PhD, pediatric psychologist at the University of Minnesota, Dan Zhang, MD, PhD, psychologist, counselor, Vancouver Community College, worked with survivors of Tangshan earthquake – HTS will commence field trainings for caregivers, coordinated by Sichuan provincial CAB.

Afterwards, Half the Sky will continue to work closely with government and the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement to develop a long-term plan based both on the NCSCB’s extensive experience with the effect on children of similar catastrophic events and also what is learned during the two week period in the field. It is sincerely hoped that, during the next two weeks, many, many children will be reunited with, if not their parents, surviving family members. For those children who, sadly, cannot be reunited, Half the Sky will continue to assist as best as it can to help mitigate the long-term effects of this disaster.

Half the Sky is a small organization. We are limited by our charter to serving orphaned children. We hope that other child-focused NGOs will join us and the government in outreach. There are many thousands of children who have surviving relatives but who are nevertheless traumatized and need help.

Rebecca Chang grew up in an orphanage in China and, with HTS’ Big Sisters Program support, went to university. When she graduated, we offered her an internship in our Beijing office. She has now become a field supervisor in the Big Sisters Program and is helping us now in Sichuan. She understands the children of this tragedy perhaps better than any of us. She sent us this story:

“The place was so dead when we arrived, everything was still, only wind was blowing. I saw a boy standing in front of the rubble of the school for a long time without a blink. I went up to him and said hi.

I asked: which grade were you in?
He said quietly: Fourth grade.
I squatted and said: Why are you always standing here?
I saw tears coming up in his eyes. He said: My classmates are gone. Teacher Gao got injured because of me!
I didn’t know what I could say that would make him feel better. I just reached out my hand and held his. His hand was cold, so cold. When I was about to leave, I was trying to hold back my tears and asked: What do you want to do the most now?
He lowered his head and answered in a shaking voice, ‘I want to go to school, but my school is not here any more.’”

Thank you!

With love,

Jenny

• Latest photos of raising the big tent, loading relief goods for

Report 05-26-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - May 24-25

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

I want first to give you an update on our efforts to get food and shelter to the 1,000 orphaned and displaced children in Aba. The roads are now closed. We asked our colleagues at the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) to see if we can possibly bring the desperately-needed goods in by helicopter. A couple of hours ago, moments after the latest giant aftershock, we got good news – a helicopter for Aba tomorrow! More soon -

Yesterday morning, when I arrived in Chengdu, I was invited by MCA to visit some of the hardest-hit sites. We visited Dujiangyan – very close to the epicenter. It was a painful day (I’ve put a few photos on our website http://www.halfthesky.org/work/earthquake08.php - some just too sad to write about) but I was also heartened to see both how quickly the government has come in and tried to take care of the basics - building thousands of temporary shelters and schools – and how the people have come together to help each other. A sign in one of the tent cities reads, “The earthquake has destroyed our homes but it can’t break our spirit.”

Today we visited Mianyang Zitong CWI. A 6.4 aftershock struck moments before we arrived at the orphanage. All of the children were rushed outside and, in what’s become routine now, they all sat calmly in little chairs. There were 8 new arrivals – all of them had lost their parents.

It seems they are not brought to the orphanages until officials are fairly certain that they will not be claimed by extended family. One little boy told us in a matter-of-fact way that both his parents were killed. Ma Lang, HTS’ director of child development, after days assisting the displaced children staying at the Jiuzhou stadium observed, “From the volunteers’ and counselors’ perspectives, the children’s most common signs of being traumatized included insomnia, nightmares, tearfulness, indifference, and refusing to eat. In the first few days, the volunteers in the stadium’s 'inner circle (a holding place for separated children) had to search bathrooms and corridors for children who hid there and refused to eat. The volunteers told me it was heartbreaking to see the children’s eyes and persuade them that they should eat.”

We visited the “inner circle” at Jiuzhou stadium today. Almost all of the children who had not yet been identified by family members had been transferred to children’s shelters. The Mianyang Civil Affairs director told us that many, many children had been reunited – if not with their parents, then with extended families. One of our colleagues at the MCA told us that of the 200 children who’d been brought to shelter at the Chengdu Medical College, only 18 had not been reunited with extended family. Today we met a girl who has become famous in China because she was interviewed on television by Wen JiaBao. It was believed her parents had died. He tried to comfort her. Soon after, her parents were located.

Although they haven’t yet been able to get to Mianyang to pick her up, today we met one happy little girl. The media has been making much of the idea of thousands of orphans. Our friends at MCA are not certain this is true and, to be honest, the situation is still too fluid to pin down the numbers. There are certainly many, many children with uncertain status. And they are traumatized and very much need consistent, caring support.

Provincial CAB (Civil Affairs Bureau) has begun the process of sending displaced children to structurally-sound colleges, military bases, welfare institutions, and other facilities. In less-stable areas, where there are fears of flooding and environmental issues, children housed in some temporary facilities are being transferred, yet again. Almost every orphanage has been advised that they should prepare for new arrivals. We met a few sad little faces yesterday at the Chengdu CWI; they are told to expect at least 100 more. The director at Zitong CWI told me the same thing. And so did the director at Guiyang CWI in Guizhou! The truth is, I believe, nobody yet knows.

These past days, the MCA has been working to draft recommendations for the care of displaced and orphaned children. I believe they will release an official statement soon. After two days traveling with MCA officials, one thing is clear - government is extremely concerned that every effort be made to reunite children with surviving relatives before adoption by non-relatives of orphaned children is even considered.

Meanwhile, tent schools are quickly being established wherever children are sheltered. There is a great desire to give the children the comfort of settling into a routine and regular attendance at school is seen as key. I visited a large tent city in Dujiangyan yesterday and the scene at 4:30 pm, with children streaming out of the temporary school toward dozens of waiting parents, was identical to that taking place in Chinese cities and towns every day.

HTS is working hard to complete its emergency relief efforts and turn its attention towards the effort for which it is better equipped – helping orphaned children begin to recover emotionally. By the end of the coming week, with your extraordinary generosity and the help of the amazing crew at Gung-Ho Films, we will have purchased and delivered more than 30 tons of tents, medicines, food and formula, children’s clothing, diapers and other infant supplies. With the helicopter to Aba and the purchase today of an emergency vehicle to transport orphaned and displaced children for 9 counties and one city, we will have answered every urgent request to take care of the children’s basic needs. Now we move on to try to address those needs no less urgent, but more elusive in every way.

Tomorrow (Monday, May 26) Half the Sky will launch its Sichuan Caregivers Training Project. I am thrilled, honored and very, very excited to tell you that HTS will work under the guidance of the foremost child trauma and bereavement specialists in the world, the National Center on School Trauma and Bereavement http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/svc/alpha/s/school-crisis/default.htm.

Based at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, but comprising an international network of child trauma experts, the Center grew from the tragedy of the Terrorist Attacks of 9/11 and has served as a resource during hurricanes, school shootings, airline disasters and wars.

Together with NCSTB and MCA, HTS will hold a two-day planning workshop, June 3-4 in Chengdu. Three experts from the Center will lead the workshop. Attending will be four volunteer pediatric psychologists and psychiatric social workers, HTS team of 15 field supervisors, our program directors and officials from MCA and Sichuan CAB. That will be the start of what will likely be a long-term project to help children orphaned by the disaster to recover and rebuild their lives.

I’ll send along further details of the Caregivers Training Project soon.
It’s almost midnight and I’m exhausted. I’ve had two days on the road through a landscape filled with aching sadness, determination and hope.

More tomorrow!

Thank you!

With love,

Jenny

• National Center on School Trauma and Bereavement

Report 05-23-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - May 23

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

Today we were starting the process of wrapping up the major portion of our orphanage relief efforts. With your help, we had purchased and delivered or were in the process of delivering huge amounts of medicines and medical supplies, tents, cribs, cots, bedding, baby formula, diapers, kids clothing and shoes, rice, noodles, cooking oil, water, powdered milk, bowls, cups, towels, mosquito repellent and much, much more. As we finalized plans to ship two giant tents to house hundreds of newly orphaned children and bring in engineers to erect them, we got an emergency call from the Aba Civil Affairs Bureau.

The Aba Civil Affairs Bureau is caring for approximately 1,000 orphaned and displaced children, most of whom are 7-12 years old. There are over 100 infants. They had been placing the children in local shelters but had just received news that 70 more children are on the way. There are no more tents and no more beds for them. Further, they urgently need powdered milk and diapers. And they need foods that don’t require cooking because most of their cooking stoves and supplies have been destroyed. They need so much they can’t even give us an estimate.

The roads to Aba are dangerous but the need is tremendous. We obtained the necessary road pass and organized a convoy of three trucks. Our senior preschool field supervisor, Yang Lei, will lead the effort, along with Aba drivers who are familiar with the dangers. It’s a 3 day round-trip. However, we have reluctantly postponed the relief mission because all reports—including from the directors of the Aba and Chengu orphanages--are that it's just too dangerous and too unsure to take such a risk while there are so many mudslides. “This is a very difficult decision for us to make, but we simply can't risk life to save life,” the orphanage directors told us. The convoy will take off as soon as we get clearance.

We have not yet really begun the second critical phase of our operation in Sichuan: training caregivers and volunteers to care for and address the non-material needs of displaced and newly-orphaned children. There are billions being donated for rebuilding, but we need help putting young lives back together.

Here’s a note from Ma Lang, who was at a relief shelter today talking to newly-orphaned children:

I talked to a junior high school girl. Here is part of our conversation:
Lang: Do you know there are psychologists and counselors there to help people?
Girl: Yes.
Lang: Would you be willing to talk to a psychologist?
Girl: Yes.
Lang: What would you like to talk about with the psychologist?
Girl: Things that make me happy. Like happy stories and movies.
Lang: What do not you want the psychologist to ask?
Girl: [pause] Do not ask me where my families are!

And then

“I met Lei in the “inner circle” at Jiuzhou Stadium. He was a cute and curious second grader who’d lost his parents in the quake. He approached me and asked me what I was doing when I was organizing the pictures I took. We looked at the pictures together, and chatted a little bit. He told me that after the earthquake, there come aftershocks, and then comes the epidemic. He said epidemic means you die if you do not wash hands before and after meals. When I asked him what an earthquake is, he said if you talk loud, earthquakes happen. I lowered my voice and asked him if our voices were loud. He said, I do not know.”

Half the Sky is finalizing plans to work in consultation with an important international resource for children traumatized by crisis. I want to thank all of you who have worked to help us locate Mandarin-speaking child trauma specialists. I think we are assembling an outstanding team. I will share more details in the next few days. What I hope I can communicate to you all is that our work is really just beginning. We need more help!

Thank you for all you’ve already done for these children – and for what you will do.

With love,
Jenny

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Report 05-22-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - May 21-22

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

Our work in Sichuan is in full swing now and it’s becoming harder to find time to write. Yet I know how deeply concerned you are about the children, so will continue to grab all the moments I can to tell you what we've learned.

Since earthquake statistics are so readily available now, I will no longer include them.

You will see below that there are preparations being made in many institutions to receive newly orphaned and displaced children. There have been numerous media reports about the thousands of new orphans; we have received dozens of adoption inquiries here at Half the Sky (which has no involvement in adoption!)

I really want to stress that many, many of these children you're hearing about will be reunited with family – if not parents, then living relatives. In rural China, especially, workers often leave their children with grandparents so that they can support their families by working in more prosperous areas. Many of the children do have parents – parents who are desperately trying to find their children. The government is keenly aware of this and, while there are many, many media reports of adoption programs and applications submitted for domestic adoption of the children, we don’t believe that any adoption procedures will be put into place before every means has been exhausted to find parents or other living relatives.

We, along with Ministry officials, are meeting with the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau on Monday and may have more information about the plans for transitional care of orphaned and displaced children. We are exploring how we can, working with other NGOs, best help care for the children in the interim and assist the government in its efforts to provide for their future.

Here is the current situation:

Chengdu CWI has been notified to prepare to receive 100 children; they expect that more may follow. At the same time, the orphanage has moved the children out-of-doors out of concern for safety. (photos on our website http://www.halfthesky.org/work/earthquake08.php) Half the Sky is working with local government and erecting a giant tent that can serve as shelter for orphaned and displaced children for as long as necessary.

More news on this early next week.

Chengdu 2nd SWI - 35 senior citizens and 10 preschool-age orphans have been transferred there from Dujiangyan City. 40~50 more orphans will be arriving soon. They are in need of 50 beds, sets of bedding, as well as the same number of clothes for children between 5 and 7 years old. Before the arrival of those 45, the institution had 100+ children and 500+ elderly people already. During aftershocks, they stayed in tents; but now, they have all moved back to the buildings.

Chengdu 3rd SWI – Caring for 30 children, all fine, not expecting new arrivals.

Wenjiang District SWI, Chengdu – Caring for only 4 children, all fine, not expecting new arrivals

Dujiangyan SWI – All of the children are under good care and there is no shortage of food or any daily necessity. 12 new children were recently brought in, but they’ve been having much success in locating surviving family members and have high hopes for these children as well.

Luojiang County SWI, Deyang City – The children are being cared for in a shelter, including 6 new arrivals. They are expecting a 2 year-old and have asked for a crib as well as diapers, powdered milk and rice.

Deyang SWI – Has prepared to receive new children per instructions.

Nanchong 2nd SWI – They are caring for 27 children and are expecting another 20. They are sleeping in tents due to concerns about aftershocks.

They ask for 10 tents, tarps and beds.

Cangxi SWI, Guangyuan City – They have some building damage. They have been advised that they may be receiving children from Qingchuan but this has not yet been confirmed by the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau.

I told you that 13 of the 24 children brought to the Zitong SWI had been reunited with family. Today I was told there were 12. Two signs hang at the institution. One says "There are only 20 children from Xiao Ba Primary School in An'Xian in our institution. There are no children from Beichuan. If you are looking for those from Beichuan, please go to (name) Hotel. If you are looking to adopt, please come in 3 months." The other, poignantly says, "Yan: only her mother was home; XianLin & LiGang are brothers: only their father was home: Cheng: her father is working in Xinjiang; Dan: her parents are working in Zhejiang; Jun: about 2 years old, parents whereabouts unknown; Zhou: about 1 year old, parents whereabouts unknown. Needs: Books to read; stable place to live. Emotional needs: their family...their relatives."

Mianyang – The Jiuzhou Stadium that houses 20,000 refugees is now, considering the situation, well-organized and, beyond trash bags and disposable gloves, there seem to be no unmet material needs. While there were, at first, about 1,700 children staying in the "inner circle" of the stadium (on the first floor inside the building), most of those children have either been reunited with family or transferred to smaller shelters in Mianyang. There are only about 130 children remaining. There are volunteer counselors and psychologists for these children. The "inner circle" is strictly guarded by police, soldiers, and volunteers. Mr. Liang JianHua, a volunteer leader and veteran, has been supervising care of the children in the "inner circle" from the very beginning, with the help of about a dozen volunteers. According to Ma Lang, he seems to be an extremely competent, kind, and devoted person.

Meanwhile, for children less well-served, Half the Sky is moving goods like crazy and working hard to initiate the next, and most important phase of our efforts – trauma counseling and care for displaced and orphaned children.

Thanks to help from dozens of volunteers, we’ve delivered about 100 of the promised tents, cases of blankets, tarps, clothes, diapers, food and medicines to several institutions. There will be many more arrivals and deliveries over the coming days. We have received permits to enter and provide aid to one of the more inaccesible hard-hit areas tomorrow (Aba County) and are working on helping in Li and Mao counties, also hard-hit.

We have begun the process of distributing to temporary children’s shelters. We give special thanks to the Sichuan employees of Silk Road Telecommunications, many of whom helped us load and unload trucks and have offered to aid in distribution and logistics all around the province.

I’ve got lots more to report but have run out of steam and time. I’ll be back tomorrow with more, I promise.

Once again, THANK YOU, all of you, who are making this work possible!

With love,
Jenny

Report 05-20-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - May 20

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

As I delay writing this report a bit longer each day, I realize that, like so many, I find it harder and harder to read or write those grim statistics or tell the sad stories. We wish we could be done with this death and disaster and start to move on. But still the numbers come.

There are 34,073 people confirmed dead, 245,108 injured, still more than 35,000 still missing.

Yesterday, after those three silent minutes in Sichuan, people began to call out, “Rebuild! Rebuild!” Today, when I was feeling I couldn’t open another casualty report, I read instead a report about new babies born during and right after the quake. They have names like ‘Li Zhen’ (Earthquake) and ‘Born in a Tent’ and ‘Long March.’ They, like all the survivors, will carry these terrible days with them always. But their lives are just beginning. For them and for all of the children who survived, Sichuan will begin to rebuild.

As hope of finding more survivors fades, we find hope in each bit of good news –

During the past week we managed to reach every single orphanage in the hardest-hit areas but one - Aba Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. Today we finally made contact. They said, “The institution buildings are no longer safe to live in. All the children live in tents. The government provides us with enough food and water and daily necessities. Now we only worry how and when we can possibly rebuild.”

Of the 24 children (all of whom were from hard-hit Anxian County) who we reported were brought to Mianyang Zitong SWI because they were newly orphaned, I am very happy to tell you that 13 of them were reunited with relatives.

The children of Suining SWI have now been able to move back into their orphanage building.

More displaced children are arriving daily at shelters in Chengdu, but no one is giving up on finding living relatives yet. Yesterday, 70 children were brought to a large hospital in Chengdu for urgent treatment. Some of them had joyful reunions with family, but of course, not all. One very young girl signed her own consent form to have surgery on her broken arm. Ma Lang wrote, “She was a sweet and tough girl, and the doctors, nurses, and volunteers loved her very much.”

Ma Lang and two other HTS staff are now in Mianyang and we expect more news from them soon. Meanwhile, our relief operation is going into full swing, with tents, tarps, medicines, beds, blankets, rice, diapers, food, clothing and baby formula moving in and out of the Chengdu orphanage for immediate delivery to distressed areas.

As we get closer to realizing our small part of meeting the basic challenges of shelter and emergency supplies, it is time to embark on the most critical project for the long term – helping the children heal and go on with life. This is, of course, why Half the Sky exists and how our organization can best help Sichuan’s children rebuild. Now we will begin the process of training caregivers, foster parents, shelter workers and volunteers of all backgrounds to work with newly orphaned and displaced children.

We believe our long experience working with children orphaned by AIDS and other children who were not infants when they lost their parents has given us a solid foundation for this work. But this week we are recruiting a team of pediatric psychologists, trauma specialsts and social workers to help us adjust our training methods to this special circumstance. (If you are, or know of, a Mandarin-speaking professional working in this field who would like to volunteer for this project, please let me know!)

Within two weeks, Half the Sky’s entire staff of field supervisors will be working with caregivers and new foster parents all around Sichuan. Our work is just beginning. Thank you so much for making it possible!

Thank you again. It’s truly an honor to be a part of this.

With love,
Jenny

Report 05-19-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - May 18-19

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

It’s Monday afternoon here in China. As I write this, the entire country just held 3 minutes of silence to commence a 3 day period of national mourning. It began at 2:28 pm, marking the very moment the massive quake struck in Wenchuan County, Sichuan. Flags flew at half-staff, the people wore white flowers and, heads bowed, held hands. Across the country, horns and sirens wailed in grief.

There are 32,477 people confirmed dead, more than 35,000 still missing.

Sadly and predictably, we are getting more information about children newly orphaned. We are now bringing together people and resources to prepare and train caregivers to help children through the next difficult phase of recovery. Unlike emergency relief (not our specialty but we're learning fast!), this is an area where HTS does have great expertise to offer. We will give all we can to these children who have many hard days ahead of them. I will be sharing our plans as they evolve.

Meanwhile, we continue to focus our attention on the most urgent needs of affected children – children in institutions and children orphaned or displaced by the disaster.

I’ve posted a few photos on our website: http://halfthesky.org/work/earthquake08.php and will update as more arrive.

There are so many heartbreaking stories, including this one from Hongbai Primary School in Shifang, which saw many of its schools destroyed and hundreds of children and their teachers buried:

“‘We found him!’ Teacher Zhang Huibing’s body was finally discovered, frozen in a posture of pushing against the door frame. According to the students saved by him, when the earthquake happened, Teacher Zhang was on the platform of the classroom on the second floor, which was very near the door. He yelled to the students, ‘Run outside! Hurry!’ And he somehow held the door frame up with both arms as the children ran out, one by one. Just as all the students were safely evacuated, the building collapsed on him. Teacher Zhang, who was only 30 years-old, had a four-year-old child of his own.”

About 30 children, from Yingxiu and Dujiangyang, were taken to a Chengdu city park, the Qingyang Sports Center, which has been converted to a refugee camp. Some children have been united with family members. We’re told that some from the media are actively trying to reunite families. Most of the children in this camp who survived were in their teens. They told us that many younger children in their town did not survive because those in the primary schools and kindergartens were napping when the quake hit and could not run.

The youngest camp resident was 16 days-old. The military police made a special effort to bring her and her very young mother down to the camp from Yingxiu. The baby was only 11 days-old when her daddy perished in the earthquake.

Perhaps today's most heartbreaking story was about some of the 70 injured children who’d been carried down from the affected areas to Huaxi Hospital. Most of the children were reunited with parents or relatives; some were even well enough to leave the hospital after treatment. But a few children remained alone and unclaimed.

They were required to sign their own consent forms so that the doctors could amputate their limbs to save their lives.

Half the Sky spent much of the weekend purchasing requested supplies and shelter, organizing distribution and continuing to assess needs.

As you can imagine, many requested items are getting harder and harder to come by. Just today we doubled our refugee tent order to 200 – all that was available immediately – and already have requests for more. Shoppers in Chengdu have begun filling a no-longer-habitable room at the Chengdu CWI (Children’s Welfare Institution) with everyday goods destined for hard-hit areas. Others around China are working on fulfilling our giant shopping list. Some are flying in to Chengdu, hand-carrying items from our medical wish-list. Our wonderful friends at Gung-Ho Films, a Beijing-based film production services company, are offering logistics support, including shopping, shipping and door-to-tent delivery!

Today 3 more HTS Beijing staffers and 2 Gung-Ho staff traveled to Chengdu to help facilitate our relief efforts. We all feel privileged to be able to help.

I can’t really express how moved we are by your generosity and your trust in Half the Sky to ensure that the children benefit from your gifts. Thank you so much for your kindness and concern.

With love,
Jenny

• Map of Orphanages Affected by Earthquake
• Earthquake Images from Half the Sky

Report 05-17-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - May 17

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

It is mid-weekend now in China so we are not getting a daily call from the ministry. But I do have further information to share with you.

We have now reached every affected institution, with the exception of Aba Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture where the orphanage is said to house 52 children. We will let you know as soon as we make contact.

It turns out the Mianzhu SWI, which we’d had trouble reaching, was leveled in the quake. There was one fatality, an elderly resident. Thankfully, all of the children were in community foster care and all are fine.

As of today (Saturday) there were 28,881 people confirmed dead. There were a very small number of live rescues, but the teams have not given up hope. Cities like Mianyang have become refugee centers. 20,000 homeless who have come on foot from nearby towns are living in the local stadium; many more thousands have no place to go. 4.7 million homes have been destroyed. 169,000 people are injured.

Ma Lang tells us that although the rescue resources keeping coming in, one concern is the uneven distribution of much needed goods. “Counties and townships that have been the focus in media coverage receive more resources (sometimes more than enough); while in some other areas, there is little. In Qingchuan, people are surviving on one bottle of water and two cookies per day.”

In the schools that did not collapse (almost 7,000 were destroyed) the education bureaus are working to care for displaced children. They need tents, blankets, masks, rice, noodles, oil, flashlights, disposable underwear and antiseptic wipes. Many of those items and the items are requested by the welfare institutions are no longer available in Chengdu.

With the funds you have donated, HTS has a team of volunteer shoppers scouring Chengdu and we have a network of staff and volunteers seeking out needed items throughout China.

Today, with your help, we purchased 100 large refugee tents to house children who are in need of shelter. We have arranged to purchase more later this week but want to be sure we can properly distribute first. It is not easy to find goods now or to get them where they need to go. But everyone is working together to help the children.

As you have heard, this tragic event has both killed children and created orphans. A group of new orphans has been transported to Chengdu. We expect to have more information soon.

Meanwhile, the orphanage in Chengdu experienced a magnitude 5.9 aftershock yesterday (there have been 23 major aftershocks ranging from 5-6.9 on the Richter Scale!) and is preparing, if necessary, to move the children completely out of what was considered to be the most solid building. They have requested tents, which we are providing immediately.

Here are answers to some of your questions, the best we can offer right now:

How can one donate goods?
We do not have the means to facilitate bringing goods into the country or distributing them where they are needed. If you are in China and have access to the following items and have means to deliver them to the Chengdu airport, please contact me: folding cots & cribs, 100 or more blankets, 100 or more pairs of children’s shoes, 100 or more large tarpaulins, 2 cases or more of children’s antibiotics (Zithromax, Amoxycillin, Penicillin, Klarithromycin, Erythromycin, Augmentin), 2 cases or more of anti-diarrheal meds (Charcoal Tablets, Kaolin), 2 cases or more of children’s anti-cold and cough meds (Dimetapp, Actifed, Robitussin) and/or 4 cases or more of rehydration salts/liquids (Pedialyte, Gatorade, Gastrolyte, ORS, Pocari Sweat). Please understand, we appreciate your wish to send items but we are not a relief agency (though we’re starting to feel like one!) and we just don’t have the mechanism or means to move your goods where they will do good. The very best way to help is to donate funds.

How many children will we help?
We can’t yet know. There are not yet statistics that separate affected children from adults. There are not yet statistics regarding the numbers of new orphans, numbers of affected orphans, numbers of displaced children who will eventually be reunited with their families. We will provide when we can.

How can one adopt newly orphaned children?
It is too early to know how many orphans have been created by the disaster. There is also much desire among the Chinese people to provide loving homes for the children who’ve lost their parents. The government’s first priority is to take care of the children’s urgent needs – to provide them with shelter, food, medical care and a nurturing environment. Half the Sky is doing its best to support this process. There will then be efforts to reunite children with relatives. Eventually, if parents or relatives can’t be located, the children will be placed for adoption. Several hundred Chinese citizens have already submitted applications to the Sichuan Civil Affairs Bureau!

I am told that many companies (was specifically informed about Microsoft and Citibank) will match employee gifts for earthquake relief. Please check to see if your company will double your gift!

Your donations to support relief efforts for the children have been so generous. It is deeply moving to see how many people care.

with love,
Jenny

Report 05-16-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - May 16

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

I dearly wish I had more good news to report. The very best thing I can tell you is that we have not had a single report of injuries from the welfare institutions.

As of this morning (Friday) there were 19,509 people confirmed dead. The State Council today said there will likely be more than 50,000. Today’s government report describes one terrible scene after another: thousands homeless, thousands missing, thousands injured, thousands trapped or buried alive. Hope for survivors is dimming. There is an urgent call for body bags to prevent the spread of disease. There have been over 4,400 aftershocks.

HTS Director, Child Development, Ma Lang has arrived in Chengdu and sends this note:
I am deeply touched by your moral and emotional support. I only slept two of the past thirty hours. The first thing I did after landing was to donate some medicine to the Chengdu Red Cross. It was very much appreciated – exactly what was needed. They gave me a wish list for further donations: antibiotics for children and adults, medicine for diarrhea, cold capsules (not instant medicines that must be mixed in water), bandages, gauze, tape, iodine, cotton swabs, herbal medicine to stop bleeding and some for pain relief. Other much-needed donations include tents, tarpaulins, warm clothes and shoes. People in Chengdu are doing everything they can to help with the earthquake rescue. I saw all sorts of vehicles carrying things to the donation centers. I registered for blood donation and was put on the waiting list – the blood center was overloaded with donated blood and it’s difficult to transport the blood to the hardest-hit areas. More to come Lang

The following orphanages report damage, but, again, no injuries. Your generous donations will help meet all of these requests for assistance:

Meishan – Cracks in buildings, have evacuated all children (50+) to tents. They have adequate food, water and clothes but request 20 cribs and bedding.

Guangyuan – Damaged buildings, all children have been in tents for 4-5 days, often in the blazing sun. They request food, baby formula water, diapers, bedding and other daily necessities. They urgently need drugs and food supplements to protect against disease and heatstroke.

Nanchong SWI – There was substantial damage to buildings, all children (100+, more than half under 6 years-old) are living in tents. They need more tents, disposable diapers, children’s clothing, wagons, cribs and bedding.

Deyang CWI – Dormitory for school-age children was severely damaged.
Although the other buildings seem fine, pending inspection, all children and staff have been moved to tents. There has been constant rain and much that was pulled from the buildings has been ruined. They request bedding and children’s clothing. They still have disposable diapers left from our assistance during the winter storms but will be running out of those as well as infant formula in the coming days.

Mianyang Zitong CWI (update) – Children have been moved back from the military base to a safe building in the institution. There is adequate food and water but they request clothes, bedding, infant formula, diapers and medicine for colds. They are now caring for 66 children, 23 of them under 2 years.

Sadly, 24 new orphans – earthquake survivors - arrived at the institution yesterday.

We are still unable to reach these orphanages: Abazhou CWI (52 children) and Mianzhu SWI

Please give what you can to help the children who survive go on with their lives.

Thank you for your tremendous support. Although it is heartbreaking to write these reports, we are so honored to be in a position to help during this terrible time.

with love,
Jenny

Report 05-15-2008

Half the Sky Earthquake Update - May 15

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

As word comes of the hundreds, maybe thousands of children lost in the earthquake, I am finding these emails almost too painful to write. When I think of so many parents who have lost their only child - so many children newly orphaned - so many families destroyed - there are no words….

As of now, Thursday afternoon in China, there are 14,866 people confirmed dead, 14,463 in Sichuan Province. There are 22,438 people reported missing – 21,020 of them in Deyang alone. There have been 3,300 aftershocks and they continue.

In Chengdu, the city continues to experience aftershocks and the orphanage in Chengdu afraid that its water supply will be cut off again. The orphanage staff is also having trouble finding sufficient supplies of milk and formula. In Mianyang, Hanzhong, and Dujiangyan, the children have been evacuated and basic supplies are scarce.

Our hearts and prayers today are especially with the parents who have lost their children in the collapse of schools - Muyu, Xinjian, Juyuan, Liangping, and the rest.

Please give what you can to Half the Sky Children’s Emergency Fund to help the children who survive go on with their lives.

Report 05-14-2008

Further News on the Earthquakes in China

By Jenny Bowen - Executive Director, Half the Sky Foundation

Dear Friends,

I know you have been waiting eagerly for more news of how the children are faring during the aftermath of the disastrous earthquake in Sichuan.

When something terrible like this happens, confusion is everywhere and rumors spread. All of us are so worried about the children. We are trying to be scrupulously careful to pass along only information that we’ve been able to verify.

We have now set up a procedure whereby we can get an update from the Ministry of Civil affairs each day. They are supervising all relief efforts so have the most complete and accurate information available. We also now have contact information for all affected welfare institutions and have begun the process of reaching out to them directly to see if they need help.

As of now, Wednesday afternoon in China, there are 12,012 people dead and 7,841 missing in Sichuan alone, and the numbers continue to rise. 26,206 people are living in temporary shelters. Only 30 children of 900 have been rescued from the collapsed high school in Dujiangyan, Sichuan. At least 20 children were buried in the collapse of a primary school in Liangping, Chongqing.

An update on the Chengdu CWI: There has been some foundation damage to the rehab building and some cracked walls in other buildings, which are being carefully inspected. The children’s building is in the best shape and all children have been moved to the first floor but spend most of the day outside, weather permitting – or in the institution buses if there is rain. All institution staff and HTS staff are working around the clock to care for the children and keep them safe.