Child sponsorship update from Putian
10/03/2008
Update from SOS Children's Village Putian, Christmas 2007
Dear sponsors,
You see, the Christmas 2007 is coming soon in 30 days. The children must be expecting it by counting days down on the calendar. Here we would like to wish you Merry Christmas and a successful year of 2008 in advance on behalf of all the children and staff in SOS Children’s Village Putian China.
Up to now there are 156 children in the Village, including 111 in the 15 SOS families and 45 in the Youth House. This year 5 more young kids came to our care. This July 14 children took the Senior School Entrance Examination and three children took College Entrance Examination. One of them got a high score and entered the ChangChun University of Science and Technology, which is a key university in China. The university lies in the northeast of China, which is very far from Putian. This boy is one of the first group of children came to our Village. His success has encouraged us a lot, and many chidlren have got a clear goal for their future: study for the university. The boy who studies sailing major does very well in his study and we decide to support him to further the education for his career certificate for another three years.
This summer two children have left the Village, because they are over 18 years old and could start their own lives by their own hands. The boy who finished his senior middle school helped his uncle in business in Shanghai now. The girl now serves as a sales person in Fuzhou City, the capital of Fujian Province together with her boyfriend. They rent an apartment and the Village gave her a small amount of money to help her to start their life. The new life is full of hope and sweet, we could see two deep dimples showing on the young girl’s face.
This year it is still not easy for the No.10 family. The little boy who came to the SOS family by the end of last year still suffered a lot an adenoid hypertrophy, an allergic rhinitis and pneumonia. The doctor suggested that it need a surgical to give a thorough treatment. Otherwise the little kid couldn’t have enough sleep. The suggestion was taken. The children in the family paid a lot of concerns to their little brother, every day they went to the hospital with the SOS mother to visit him after school. The kid was not alone in the hospital.
The Village has been in operation for over seven years now, and the first group of children have grown into young people. You see, the young men are proud to show the broad shoulders, while the young ladies are shy to show the rosy cheeks. Now they are beginning to have their own thoughts and learning to deal with things by themselves. And the Village pays a lot of attention on the individaul education. This year we had some series of psychological talks for the children. We invited the psychologist to give a sexual talk, telling the children what the differnences and the relationship are between the boys and girls; we invited the psychological doctor to give a talk “speak out your sorrow and consideration”, showing that it is very important to communicate with others; the student’s tutor from the No.2 Middle School in Putian gave a talk about “I am unique”, suggesting how to accept oneself and improve oneself. Through such kinds of activities, the children are more active to talk about their problems, and exchanging their ideas of solving the problems. They became more and more open and agreeable. It might help them to become more confident.
Since Beijing is going to host the 29TH Olympics in 2008, the children, as well as the other Chinese people are very excited about that. It is such a big event in China that they could see many advertisements and the related on TV, newspaper, and on on. For the young kids the symbols of the Beijing （Olympics）2008 “FUWA” are their favorite. On October 2 the students and the teachers from Putian University came to have some activities together with the children: “welcome Olympics, celebrate the National Day”, they had some funny games and a basketball game. The children formed their own groups voluntarily and took part in the games excitedly. While the others acted as the great cheering squad excitedly.
In order to encourage the children to be good, we organised a summer camp, choosing two children good at school from every SOS family, to go to the Meizhou Island. The children played on the sand, chasing the waves, looking for the beautiful shells and the accidentally-moving-sideway crabs. They had a great fun.
This autumn there were some cases of Dengue Fever in Putian. The village printed the copies on the Dengue fever and distributed to the people in the neighbourhood, so the people would know what the fever is and how to protect themselves. And the community decided to kill the mosquitos regularly. And it was a good chance to give an environmental protection lesson for the chidlren.
At the end, we would like to thank you for your generous help and support you have given to our SOS children. We hope you can continue this kindness in the future. And we can share the developments of the children with you.
Best regards,
Shi Jinhuo, Village Director and SOS Children’s Village Putian, China
Sponsor's update from Tianjin
Update from the SOS Children's Village Tianjin, Winter 2007
Dear Sponsors, Dear friends,
Thanks to your generous help, all of the SOS children are very happy to live with their SOS mothers and sisters and brothers.
The SOS Children’s Village
By the end of November, there are 102 SOS children living in the village. We have 12 admissions who lost their parents and are from poor areas of Tianjin and Hebei province, among whom there are 5 younger ones. With the help and care of SOS mother and siblings, they quickly suit the life in SOS village and live happily with their new family. Now the younger ones have been admitted to the nursery school and can do some easy things by themselves. Up to now, we have 8 mothers retired this year, and they have moved to the Mother’s Retirement Flat.
The village has hold different activities with the community, such as party, cultural communication, and donation, in which SOS mothers and children joined and has built good relationship with the community. All of the activities are benefical to both of the village members and the community residents, such as volunteers of nearby universities building one to one coaching style for every SOS child with his/her lessons, SOS mothers joining in the educational activities held by the community, SOS children visiting old people in the Old People’s House and doing cleanings for the nearby community, SOS children taking part in the calligraphy competition and so on.
Under the analysis of current labor market, the village hold a meeting for graduating class students, in which SOS mothers and teachers talked with each other on how to enhance the achievement in children’s studing work and to release their psychological pressure, at last they made effective measures aim to help the graduating class students to successfully enter High school and Universities, which are holding coaching classes for students who needed them such as English, Chinese, and Maths (the roling classes ). This year, the Old People’s Newspaper cooperated with the village and build a Social Work Department in order to assist children to find proper jobs or recommend them to as suitable companies according to his/her major. By the end of the year, 13 youth will leave the village and start their independent lives. There are 3 youth got married this year.
In this September, the SOS Asian National Directors Meeting was held in Tianjin, China. In order to hold this meeting, the village has done a lot of preparation work. Exception for providing the room and board, SOS mothers, co-workers, and SOS children took advantage of the summber holiday to rehearse porformances for it, for example, SOS children strengthened the rehearsal of the formal dancing and chorus and formed a drum group; co-workers, SOS mothers and children strengthened to rehearse the Fan dance, which were highly appraised by the Asian Participants. During the Asian Meeting, Wang Jinda, our youth who left the village, is the special cook in Tianjin Jixian Big hotel now. He worked as the main cook to cook delicious and traditional Chinese food for the participants, who left a deep impression on them. Ma Shanqing, our another youth, held his own calligraphy exhibition during 6th, Sep to 12th, Sep, which consisted of 100 pieces of his calligraphy works. About 1000 people came to see it, including participants of Asian Meeting, calligraphists, and good donation friends of different companies. It was reported by the media of Tianjin.
SOS Youth House
By the end the October, there were 5 boys moved into the Youth Flat. Now 34 boys is living there. During the Summer holidays, some youth took part-time jobs near the community as usual, such as sending water or newspaper, serving as waiters in the restaurants and hotels. Now there are 12 youth volunteerly donated their blood to the needy people this year.
By this way they want to do something for the society and people who need help. Youth House teachers and SOS mother increase contact in order to help young men to suit this half-independent and collective life in the Youth House. Meanwhile, young men keep deep contact with their SOS family, especially when their SOS mothers got retired, they came back to help them move house, and often visit the Mother’s Retirement Flat and do some housework for them.
SOS Nursery School
This year, there are 52 children in the nursery school, including 4 SOS children. In this year’s teaching work of nursery school, we invited Tsing Hua Children’s English School teacher to teach children English for free. Except for the daily interesting English lessons, they made new English names for each child, so now the kids say hello with each other by their English names, from which they thought it fresh and interesting and eager to study English. When seeing their kids love to learn English so much, the parents were very satisfied and happy to see their kids’ new progress. Therefore, SOS Nursery School contact with community more and more naturally and harmoniously.
SOS Social Centre
The village fully uses the well-equipped centre to serve the SOS children and the community residents, which provide wider space for SOS mother and children to communicate well with the residents of the community. This year, the centre has offered medical consultation for about 50 residents of the community, and taken physical examination for 33 women from the poor families. The centre hold various kinds of activities for the community, such as Community Culture Activity, Old People’s Show, and Celebrations, which is about 27 times and 1800 people attended. There are about 29 SOS children attending the chorus and dancing classes for free. The centre has received the donated activities 85times, about 3000 people.
Your kind help enables us to do our work well. Therefore we would like to thank you, dear sponsors and friends, on behalf of all our children and mothers. We all are aware that we owe a lot to your generosity. We would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year.
With Best Regards;
Zhenlin Wang
Village Director of SOS Children’s Village of Tianjin China
Relevant Countries: China.