Child Services

Yunnan has 55,000 registered orphans and tens of thousands of others who are left unwanted. The incoming AIDS epidemic will likely multiply these figures several-fold. The Child Services Initiative focuses on the needs of orphans and other children at risk. Up until this time, unwanted children have frequently been abandoned or murdered. Our objective is to intervene and see that every child is given an opportunity to be loved, living in a healthy home.  One focus is in Jinghong, where there are currently few services available for parents and primary caregivers who choose to raise high-risk children in this region. The hope of Child Services is to provide social and medical services, create a support network for at-risk families, and to equip caregivers with needed skills and resources. Abandoned or orphaned children are being placed in loving homes. In addition, short to medium-term center-based care is provided for children with disabilities, deformities and HIV/AIDS. Other projects focus on long-term (lifelong) placement of orphans in loving families, pay tuition costs for children otherwise unable to attend school, and provide medical assistance to children where families are unable to afford it.