Sponsor's update from Chengdu, China

Child sponsorship update from the SOS Children's Village Chengdu, China from Winter 2007/2008

Dear friends:

On the occasion of the season, we’d like to extend our warmest greetings to you all who reach out your hands for children who have lost their natural parents and help with building their new home. Christmas and New Year not only means happy occasions for children but also signals that that we have walked together with our children for one more. And we are grateful for having such true and kind friends as you! Each year, it is always our pleasure to mail you this newsletter and tell you the development of the Village.

It has been over 10 years since the founding of Chengdu SOS Children’s Village. Now there are altogether 170 children and youngsters living in 15 SOS families and 1 Youth Facility in the Village. The first group of children recruited has grown up into big boys and girls. Some of them are studying in professional schools or colleges. A few of them has got jobs in the society. Two youngsters are serving in the army now. We believe you must be as happy as us to see them becoming the useful members of the society!

July and August is the summer vacation of children at school. Summer is hot in Chengdu and so children enjoy longer holidays than kids in other countries. We organized colorful activities to make a meaningful holiday for them. The Village’s library was open from Monday to Friday. Children who like reading found their favorite fairy tales there and have adequate time to read. Besides the routing training such as drawing, calligraphy, musical instrument, football, chess, English, etc., the Training Center of the Village started two new classes this summer, I-go (a traditional Chinese chess game) and roller skating. In addition, Children went to visit Chengdu Scientific Museum and DuFu (a standing Chinese Poet) Museum too. Youngsters over 16 took part-time job in some of our local social-practice-partner companies during the summer vacation. They were happy to earn some pocket money by themselves at the same time enrich their social experience.

Events in Chengdu, China

FIFA Women’s Football World Cup was held in August in 4 cities of China. As one of the 4 hosting cities, Chengdu welcomed 4 strong national teams, including USA, North Korea, Sweden and Nigeria. The organiser of FIFA presented us with some free tickets so that we could take our children to watch and cheer for the wonderful performance of the players. Members of the Village’s football team are especially enthusiastic. They had watched some Chinese Series games but it is still a precious memory to be in world cup.

We held a Mid-autumn Day Party in the open as usual. It is a traditional Chinese holiday for family gathering. Families took out their tables and favorite snacks and sit around to appreciate the beautiful moon night. We were luck this year because we had a beautiful moon scene on the night. Moon Cake is the typical food for the occasion. A local cinema brought a children’s movie as a present for the children. It really feels good to eat moon cake while watching a funny film in the open ground.

Oct. 1st is the national holiday in China. People have 7-days holiday and so we call it “golden week” because people can have leisure to travel around (a precious holiday), which booms the tourism (brings money for business people). Having stayed at school for a month, children were a little tired. So, for the first 2 days, SOS Mother took their children to parks nearby. And then, for the following 3 days, we took some children to go outing in the countryside. They were so excited to be in touch with nature.

Preparing for children's futures

SOS Training Centre in the Village held 2 training courses in Oct; one is for SOS Mothers and the other for office secretaries from 10 SOS Villages. By the way, the 10th SOS Children’s Village is being built in Beijing, which is to be open in June 2008. We are now more and more experienced with organising training. The trainings enrich SOS Mothers and staff’s professional skill and knowledge to educate our children, offers chances for SOS Mothers to forget their tiring job for a while as well. Besides, many SOS mothers are good friends. You can see how proud they were when they chatted about their sons and daughters with each other.

It is becoming cold since November in Chengdu. But the atmosphere in the Village was quite warm. Our roller-skating team has born some fruits. Many children now could skate skillfully. When they were at home, they ran and chased each other around the Village, which created a lot of happy noise. On the last weekend of Nov., our children drew a big pictures together with their friends and classmates, expressing their support for 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and their wishes for peace and mailed it to Beijing.

Now we are preparing a Karaoke party, which shall be held next week. You can imagine how excited the children are when talking about this. We bought some balloons and fluorescent optical wands, intending to make it a big event. I think everyone would feel a “star” on the stage. Of course, this is only a prelude of Christmas and New Year’s Party.
By the way, if you have a chance of study, social practice or work for our growing youngsters, please contact me.

Taking the best wishes from Chengdu, China,

May you and your family members a wonderful Christmas!

All the best!

Cao Shuhuai (Director of Chengdu SOS Children’s Village)