In August '06, eleven people from our little island of Guernsey
travelled to China for three weeks.
We visited Robert & Liz Glover
and had the great privilege of seeing first hand their charity Care for Children in action.
The
charity aims for 1 million orphans and abandoned children to be
fostered or adopted from orphanages into Chinese families before 2010.
They are well on the way to achieving their target, with over 200,000
fostered so far.
Our team spent time in orphanages in Yunnan
province, in Kunming and in Jingdong and visited projects involving
foster families in the surrounding areas. Everywhere we went we were
accepted with such beautiful hospitality and kindness, beaming smiles
from people who possess very little transformed every member on the
trip.
We got stuck in to repairing a road, chopping, digging
and hacking up garden areas, but mainly we spent time getting to know
the children. It was such a valuable time for both groups. We found it
amazing how little the language barrier got in the way of communicating
with each other, especially during a crazy out of control water fight,
which was one of the highlights of our time together. It was very hard
to leave our friends at the end of the third week.
So why would
we decide to send these young people half way across the globe?
We are
very keen to provide opportunities for young Guernsey people to enjoy
other nations, to have the incredible experience of leaving the comfort
zone and putting other people first who have a lot less than we do, to
get involved with and serve orphans and abandoned children in a
practical way and to develop personal skills and experience. We have
seen the notable and obvious impact and transformation of mindset
amongst people of all ages from this trip alone.
As a result of
our visit to China, our lives will not be the same again. We are
currently launching an exciting new charity to support orphans and
abandoned children in Africa and Asia, as part of that we are exploring
ways of partnering with Care for Children in China. Our first task is
to supply a vehicle to the Jingdong orphanage to enable the foster
families to be visited regularly, to provide support and monitoring. We
are aiming to raise £16,000 by the end of Autumn 2007 for this. Many
thanks to all of our generous sponsors for these projects – you have no
idea what you have started! And of course... a massive thankyou to the
Glover family and all of the Care for Children staff for going beyond
the call of duty to look after us so amazingly well. And finally, Mr
Shur, from the Department of Civil Affairs in China, you are a star and
with out you none of this would have been possible!
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