Half the Sky Children's Earthquake Relief Fund

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

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

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!