A Home for Sick Orphans In Shanghai
Written by Wang Fangqing Tuesday, April 26 2011
Snapshot: Guo Wencui
SHANGHAI, China – Shanghai Baby’s Home, commonly called Home, is a local voluntary organization that helps sick orphans from poor areas get the best available medical service in Shanghai. It is located in a small villa in the Minhang district of the city.
Founded in 2008, the short-term care foster home has so far helped 40 babies, most of whom were born either with cleft lip and palate or cerebral palsy.
The Home was founded by 11 young mothers, all with full-time jobs. One of them is Guo Wencui, an accountant.
Womenetics: Is Home a nongovernment organization (NGO)?
Guo Wencui: No. In China, an NGO has to register with the government, which requires a lot of difficult, time-consuming procedures. So the Home is just a voluntary organization. It’s not officially acknowledged, but is allowed to exist.
Womenetics: Do you get any subsidy from the government as do orphanages?
Guo: Since we are not officially acknowledged, we cannot get any subsidy from the government. For the same reason, we also cannot promote ourselves heavily. We get most donations from individuals and foreign NGOs through word of mouth. It is quite difficult, but we still manage to survive.
Womenetics: Where did the idea of setting up the Home come from?
Guo: Years ago, a nurse living in Henan province uploaded some photos at the baby care website we 11 founders visited regularly. The photos were taken in a local orphanage in Henan, showing the poor living condition of the kids, especially those sick kids. At that time, Beijing already had a similar organization like ours, called Angel Mom, which was working with the nurse to get these sick kids to Beijing for medical operations. Seeing this, we decided to join them because Shanghai also has good medical services, so we set up the Home.
Womenetics: How did you 11 founders know each other? Were you friends?
Guo: We didn’t know each other initially. However, we were all keen to joining the conversations at the forum of the baby care website, so gradually we came to know each other.
Womenetics: Where do you find the sick babies?
Guo: Mostly from orphanages in rural areas of Shaanxi province, Henan province, and Fujian province. We contact them through Child Welfare League under the China Association of Social Work, a government-backed nonprofit organization.
Womenetics: How do you find foster parents?
Guo: We look for the qualified families through networking events and individuals, which is very time-consuming. Most of the foster families are foreign families living in Shanghai. If we cannot find foreign families, Shanghai local families are the second choice.
But the last thing we want to do is return the babies to the orphanages where they came from as we had some heartbreaking experiences. For example, we used to have a baby who had imperforate anus, and we got for him a successful operation in Shanghai. But shortly after we sent him back to the orphanage, the opened rectum closed again, simply because the orphanage did not have enough people to do the postoperative care. As a result, he had to go through the same operation three times.
Womenetics: How long is the average time for a baby to stay in a foster family, and what happens after that?
Guo: Our babies are for long-term fostering, and we wish they could stay in the families until 18 years old. But we know it is very difficult. For example, a foreign family could leave China or under other circumstances the baby has to be returned to us. In these cases, we have to look for the next foster family.
According to the regulation, we can look for foster parents only because permanent adoption must be approved by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Womenetics: How do you identify eligible foster parents?
Guo: We have our requirements, according to China’s foster care regulation. For example, stable income is essential, and experience of babysitting is a plus. For single women who wish to foster a baby, we would ask them to hire babysitters.
Womenetics: What you do is meaningful, but sometimes could also be heart wrenching, how do you distract yourselves in your spare time?
Guo: In fact, being with these babies relieves our daily stress as we all have full-time jobs, some as business owners and senior managers, positions that can be highly stressful.
Our most joyful moment is to see a cured baby fostered by a good family. We are truly fulfilled for what we are doing for these babies, who we believe deserve a second chance to live well.
Wang Fangqing (Frances Wang) is a freelance reporter based in Shanghai. For the past four years, she has been writing for a variety of English language publications, including Tobacco Journal International, Soap Perfumery & Cosmetics and Securities Industry News, reporting business trends in Asia. A Chinese native speaker, she is also fluent in Japanese and English.
