Angel Covers: October 2005

It is so hard to believe that it is already October. Where have the months gone? I apologize that it has been so long since our last update. That is a reflection of how busy things have been. I have so much to tell you about this month. I apologize if this is a long newsletter, but many wonderful things have been happening.

A trip to China...

Let's start in China this month since I have only been back a couple of weeks. The primary purpose of my trip was to be at the Philip Hayden Foundation for the dedication of the Hands of Hope wall on September 23rd. Unfortunately, due to some delays the wall wasn't completed. However, there has been a lot of progress and the wall is close to completion now. There are still some tiles that need to be added, but as you can see it's going to be beautiful. It is great to see this project finally coming to completion. We hope that families will enjoy visiting the wall and spending time reading the wonderful messages of love.

Along with my visit to Shepherd's Field Children's Village for the dedication, I met with staff from the China Charity Federation(CCF). We have been working with CCF with Project Tigger. Some of the bouncers that are purchased through Project Tigger are distributed by CCF to the poorest and neediest orphanages in China. It has been a wonderful relationship, and I am excited to see it continue to grow. Along with a CCF staff member, I toured the Jinan orphanage in the Shandong province. Jinan is a wonderful facility. If only they could all be that way. We discussed the needs of the poorer orphanages in Shandong while there. Our next purchase of bouncers which is taking place now includes some that will be distributed in the Shandong province. We will be purchasing a total of 425 baby bouncers this time! Project Tigger continues to be a great success. The feedback we hear from the orphanages has been extremely positive. Thanks for the continued support.

From Jinan I flew to Guiyang, Guizhou to visit the foster care program there. What a wonderful group of caring people and a great program. There are literally over 100 special needs children in the orphanage in Guiyang in addition to the 200 children who are in foster care. Most of the children in foster care also have special needs. The foster families don't have many basic supplies like band-aids. Angel Covers was able to purchase first aid kits for the foster families. There is also a developmental test given to the children with CP and other issues. They can take the test up to three times but only 20 days apart. If the children do not pass the test, they are not placed for for adoption. We have purchased the toys used in administering this test for the 200 families and they are being trained to work with the children and help them learn these developmental skills. We are looking forward to continuing to work with the programs in Guiyang. There are so many things that we will be doing there in the future.

We are very pleased that almost all of the children in Qinghai have a sponsor. We only have four children remaining who need a sponsor. For $10 a month their basic needs and education is completely paid for. If you can help sponsor one of these children, let us know!

A trip to Russia...

Just before I left for China, Barb was returning home from a trip to Russia. It was amazing how many places she visited while there. Barb started her trip in St. Petersburg. She was given special permission to visit a closed facility in Pavlovsk. This facility is home to over 600 children from 4 to 18 years old with psychological or nuerological disorders. They are in need of very basic things as the majority of the children are bedridden. They need cloth diapers and minerals and vitamins. There is no water purification system for the facility. They boil all of the water the children drink. A water purfication system would be a tremendous benefit. The effects of institutionalization on the children were incredibly pronounced in the children that have been there for 15 years. Some of the 17 and 18 year olds are physically the size of 4 and 5 year olds, due to the lack of nutrition and institutionalized care. We will be working with Pavlovsk to make changes for improved nutrition and stimulation.

Barb's next stop was another closed facility in Peterhof that she was also given special permission to visit. Like Pavlovsk this facility is a pyschiatric and neurological orphanage. It is home to approximately 100 children. She had the opportunity to interview the doctors and therapists who work there to assess the needs of the children. None of them asked for anything fancy. They just need basic items like vitamins, diapers, special medicines for some children, etc. For both facilities Barb was able to deliver special developmental toys the staff loved. She also brought very basic crayons, coloring books, bubbles, play dough, kids musical instruments and other toys that will help the children developmentally and provide them with more stimulation.

A young man at the Peterhof facility just broke Barb's heart. He is a 5 year old little boy named Vadim. Vadim had just recently arrived at the orphanage. He weighs 12 pounds. The facility takes care of children 4 to 18 years old, but has never had a child so small. They had no clothes for him. He needs a special substance added to his food that will help him swallow it easier. This is very hard to find in Peterhof. Barb was able to leave them with funds to purchase clothing for him, as winter is coming and it will get quite cold.

Barb visited many other orphanages and met with the Ministry of Education in some regions. She was able to deliver supplies and toys to many locations. Cribs were purchased for several orphanages that had old cribs with lead based paint. Many orphanages needed soap and shampoo as they had none. One orphanage has no hot water. The temperatures during the winter get as cold as -30 degrees C. We would like to get boilers for this orphanage as the children bathe in very cold water during the winters. During her trip she was able to provide some immediate assistance to 13 oprhanages in 5 regions. That directly helps over 1300 children. We are working on developing longer term programs to meet these orphanages needs. The details will be put on the Russia webpage in the near future.

Progress in Africa...

Programs in Kenya are also making tremendous progress. The Humble Hearts School for the Deaf has been growing. It now has 66 students. Part of the increase has been the addition of hearing siblings. This will help the deaf children at home as there will be another family member who knows sign language. We have a lot of the children sponsored but we still have children who need a sponsor. The school has had to move again. This time it has hopefully moved to a more permanent location. We have helped them build a classroom at the new location and will begin on another classroom soon.

Since the last time I wrote so much progress has been made on Waddington High School. Thanks to an incredibly generous donation we were not only able to build the one new classroom and a labratory needed in January 2006, but we were able to build the second story classrooms that will be needed in 2007 and 2008. The building is very near completion. Once completed, the classrooms can be used for the elementary classes that will be entering high school over the next few years. The children are excited to know they have a building for school, which will allow them to complete high school.

Holly House continues to grow. More children have been added to the home even though there is no room. The need continues to be greater than the capacity. We have been able to purchase the first plot of land needed for a new home, and will be purchasing the second plot of land very soon. In partnership with Packages of Hope, we are continuing to raise funds to construct a new facility. This is a very high priority project for us as Holly House is overflowing, and there are always more kids in need.

Galilee Primary School continues to flourish. We were thrilled to have all of the children on our website find a sponsor. Thank you to everyone who is sponsoring a child. With the break between terms, we have not yet received bios of more children and groups. They will be coming soon. There are still hundreds of children at the school who do not have a sponsor. We have also been adding more and more children to the lunch program to insure the children are receiving at least one meal a day. There are still hundreds of children who are hungry. Your donation can help them.

Gifts From The World

In November we will be holding our 2nd annual "Gifts From The World" auction. The auction team has been hard at work for months. We have items that have come in from all over the world this year and are very excited about the auction. The funds we raise this year will be used to support our educational programs. Lack of education continues to keep children in their current state of poverty. Without an education they cannot compete for jobs as adults, which will break this cycle. Investing in these programs now while the children are young will pay huge dividends for the future. The auction will begin on November 7th. Check the webpage for a link to the auction! If you can help by displaying a flyer at work or somewhere else, please feel free to print some and help spread the word..

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." - William Butler Yeats

Child of the Month

This months Child of the Month is from China. Feng Feng is nearing his 10th birthday. He had surgery in 2002 to correct a congenital condition. His health is completely normal and he is growing in good health. He attends 2nd grade and gets along well with classmates and teachers. Feng Feng is ready for his family. He wants to be adopted. If Feng Feng's home is with your family or you want to learn more about adoption from China contact Chinese Children Adoption International at 303-850-9998 or by e-mail at childmatch@chinesechildren.org.

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We have many wonderful kids helping in great ways. Travis collected more than 130 blankets for children in China as an Eagle Scout project. Other kids are in the process of collecting books for the libraries at Humble Hearts and Galilee. We have girl scout troups and youth groups sponsoring children and collecting toys. My boys held a garage sale and raised $875 for the lunch program at Galilee and to buy desks at Waddington High. Kids are making a difference in the lives of kids all over the world. If you know of a child working to make a difference for others we would love to hear about it.

It is amazing to see all of the things that have been accomplished by all of you who support our work. You are a phenominal group of people to work with. I am excited about not only the things we have accomplished but also the things I see happening that will benefit the lives of children. Thank you for your support and help! Let's keep working together to solve one problem at a time and make a difference one child at a time.

Kari
Director, Angel Covers