Child sponsorship from Chengdu
10/03/2008
Update from Summer 2007
How are your doing? I am sorry for the report coming to you later than usual because we are quite busy preparing for children’s summer vacation these days. Anyhow, there are some good news and I wish they bring you good mood.
HuaZhao Primary School, the former school, which most of our younger children attend to in the past, has moved to a new site and has a new name of ‘XinZhi Primary School’ in January. It is good for our children since the school is still near to the Village but with new buildings and facilities.
We invite a retired football coach to train our young football players from February. We recruited some young players around 10 years old for the team since most former players have moved to vocational school and have less time for training. We wish the younger players can improve soon and inherit the good tradition of the team. When there is game held, we still call back the older players. For example, last month our team was invited to take part in an amateur game with 8 teams in Chengdu city and we won the fourth place.
When winter vacation began at the beginning of February, we organise some children over 16 years to take part in social practice. Some local companies are giving us support by offering social practice opportunities to our children. Children are growing up gradually and some of them would face the challenge of being self-reliant soon. Over 20 youngsters took part in social practices. They learnt useful knowledge which can not be learnt in books. And after the practice, we organised a winter camp in Emei Mountain, which is about 2 hours drive from Chengdu City. Youngsters played happily in snow and helped each other and succeeded in climbing to the top of the mountain 3000 meters above sea level. And in this coming summer vacation, we plan to find more social practice chances for our youngsters.
The biggest event in the Village in the past half year may be our celebration of the Village 10th founding anniversary in April. How time flies! Ten years passed in a twinkling of eyes since the founding of the Village. We hold a simple yet warm celebration party for the occasion. We invited some local sponsors and officials from the local government to the celebrations. Children took out their favorite drawing and painting for an exhibition. Some children performed wonderful programmes. Everyone enjoyed it.
Right after the celebrations of the Village’s 10th anniversary, the Village held a SOS Mothers’ Training Programme as routine. We call it routine because there are always 2 such programmes held in each year. Each time over 20 SOS Mothers and Aunts from 9 Villages of China gather together in Chengdu to share experience and receive training in family management, education, psychology, cooking and ect. Our Village’s Mothers and Aunts benefit from these training too because they are so near to the program and can attend the training in their spare time.
It is a fruitful season this June since 30 children entered senior middle schools or vocational schools after graduation from junior middle school. And 2 of our children passed the National Entrance Exam for College. Both of them are going to study in college in Sep.
Also in June, the Belgian Princess Mathilde came to visit the Village. The Princess visited our training programmes and was greatly interested with the game of ‘I-go’, a traditional Chinese chess game. After learning some rules about the game, the Highness began to play it with our children! The princess exchanged gifts with our children too.
Three new children entered SOS Families in the past half year. And as six boys over 14 are going to move to the Youth Facility this month, we have vacancy to recruit about 10 children. And now we are planning a big orphan investigation activity in SiChuan province, intending to provide help to the most needed.
At last, please allow me to thank you again for your care and support to the Village and our children through these years.
Enclosed in the letter is a photo of our Village’s several young football players taken when they went to serve for a Chinese football league.
Best Regards from Chengdu SOS Children’s Village, China
Cao Shuhuai (Director of Chengdu SOS Children’s Village), Yang Jianyong (Sponsorship Secretary)
Sponsor's update from Kaifeng
Update from the SOS Children's Village Kaifeng, Summer 2007
Half the year has nearly passed, and we are so happy to tell you something about our SOS Children’s Village happened in last few months, and we hope you will like it.
The Spring Festival is always the most important holiday for Chinese within the whole year. When the holiday coming, all the people would come back to their home to share happiness and blessing with family members and friends. Just before the New Year Day, we welcomed a group of honored guests from SOS Children’s Village China, led by Mr. Bai Yihua, the national director of SOS China. Accompanied by the leaders of Kaifeng Civil Affairs Bureau, they visited the family and expressed their sincere solicitude and appreciation. They themselves donated 3000 Yuan RMB to the children as present for the New Year.
The year of 2007 is an important year for our village, for 10 years ago, our village opened officially on 7th April, 1997. A big ceremony was held on 8 April, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the founding of our SOS Children’s Village. Distinguished guests and officials from the local government attended the celebrations. Happily on that day, we received many gifts from the kind friends, such as books, very big birthday cake.
In May, Ms. Shen Xinsu, one of the most important staff member, who had been serving as the village director assistant retired from her position. During these years, she had devoted herself to the development of our village and growth of the children. She is one of the founders of the village, and had lots of work since our village established. All the mothers and children love her so much, for they have maintained close ties and gained good relationship.
Before this year’s International Children’s Day, our village received the biggest donation in the latest years from the private company. Henan Kaixiang Real Estate Company, a big firm in Zhengzhou donated 100 thousand yuan RMB, with these money, they bought 15 new computers and some books. In near future, we will apply for the access to Internet for all families, and then all the children can enjoy the internet and learn more about the computer. Joined with Zhengzhou Daily Newspaper, the Company recruited 140 “loving mothers” as representatives, and they visited our village on the donation day expressing their kind heart and support to our village. They had lunch in family houses with mothers and children, and had a good time in the village and established good relation with the families. Of course, they brought their own small gifts. As a part of whole donation activity, on 2 June all the children and mothers were invited to Zhengzhou, the capital of our province. During the one day visit, the children visited Zhengzhou Science & Technology Museum and Henan Provincial Museum, and they had a good time there, and learned a lot about science and the history of our homeland.
In June, 3 young boy from the SOS Youth Facility will take part in the national admission examination for college. We wish them a good result, though they do not well in their school course. Also nearly 30 girls and boys will graduate from junior high school and take part in the admission examination for senior high school. Only the students who achieve very high score have the chance to enter key senior high school which means more chance to enter good university. Others will have to select common senior high school or technical secondary school.
Now in our city, summer is coming, we hope you and your family can enjoy the nice weather in your country, and always have a cheerful mood.
Thanks again for your persistent and generous support to our village.
Relevant Countries: China.