Half the Sky Children's Earthquake Relief Fund

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.