Monday, July 16, 2007

Half The Sky



An overview of Half The Sky from their website

"Half the Sky offers the love and concern of family for thousands of orphaned children in China who have lost theirs.
Our goal is to ensure that every one of China's orphans has a caring adult in her life. We provide individual nurture and stimulation for babies, innovative preschools that encourage an early love of learning, personalized learning opportunities for older children, and loving — and most important, permanent — foster homes for children whose special needs will keep them from being adopted.

To learn more about our beginnings and how far we've come in our effort to reach the thousands of children who wait in China's welfare institutions."


Last year in November Riz and I decided we wanted to celebrate National Adoption Awareness Month. We began looking at charities that do work in China. There are several GREAT charities out there. Every Charity is doing FANTASTIC work to help the children living in China's orphanages. We chose Half The Sky because we liked how their focus is on all the children, The children waiting to be adopted and those who will never be adopted. We liked how they have programs related to education for the children and for the nannies who work with the children. Riz and I decided that we wanted to Sponsor a child for 1 year. The cost is $300 a year, we pay it monthly in $25 instalments. We decided that we spend at least that much eating out, on coffee or bottled water a month, so we can put that money to good use. We have been sponsoring a child from Nanning, China now for 8 months and have not missed that $25 each month one bit. We receive quarterly progress updates on this baby. We just received word that we have been assigned a new baby because this baby has been moved to one of their permanent foster care families. I have to say that we are sad that we wont know what happens to her from here but, we are happy that she will now be with a permanent family who will love her. The new baby we have been assigned is chunky, beautiful, and young we hope that she finds her permanent family soon too. We have seen the direct effects of the good work of Half the Sky when our friends Matt and Amy brought their beautiful daughter Lottie home. Lottie was in one of the Half the Sky programs. She is happy, healthy and adjusting well to her family. It touched our hearts to know that a family will be blessed in the same way Matt and Amy were with Lottie, with the child we have sponsored.

We would encourage you to research the charities that are helping children in China. To look and see if you can spare anything from you budget to help. It is one of the best things we have done since we have been waiting to bring our Sophia home. This is something we will continue to do even after we bring her home. We think it is important to teach Sophia the importance of giving to others who are in need. We want to teach her to be benevolent from the beginning. We feel that the best way to teach her something is to lead by example...

Check out the Half the Sky website for ways that you can help

3 comments:

Julie said...

Thank you so much for your eloquent post on such an important subject. Sam is at an orphanage that is supported by Half The Sky and we have seen pictures of his brightly colored and engaging classroom. We are really at peace with the long wait because we know that he is being cared for and taught on a daily basis. We are grateful to Half The Sky and their vision for a better life for these precious children.

Christine said...

Thanks Susan for posting about Half the Sky. We have been talking about doing something for a long time and after reading your post we are going to contact Half the Sky!! No more..."we should do something". :) Now I am excited to see which little child we end up sponsoring.

geminirn said...

What a wonderful thing you guys are doing...doesn't it feel great when you see the little faces and get the updates.