Clean Water Project Pictures!!!!
Ya’ll will remember from this post, my talk about how on our most recent trip to China I decided if I ever win the lottery and have more money than I know what to do with, my pet project will be to find ways to bring clean drinking water to those who do not have it. I believe that is the thing we Americans probably take the most for granted as being a necessity, not realizing that much of the rest of the world considers it a luxury they do not have.
So I came home to discover that someone I know is involved in a project to bring clean drinking water to people. Goose bump time!!
A Child’s Right is home from their project in China. And they have pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.
www.a-childs-right.org/projects.html
There are 184 pictures in all, just keep clicking the little plus sign at the bottom right.
There are pictures of cities and countryside and (of course) the water systems, but best of all are the pictures taken of and in the orphanages, eight in all I believe. If you’ve never seen pictures of the inside of an orphanage in China, here is your chance.
June 15th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Thanks for the link, I enjoyed the pictures very much. Interesting that none of the orphanages they visited appear to be “empty”. I realize that you often can not tell SN or NSN from these pictures (and some of the children would obviously qualify as SN), but there certainly seemed to be a lot of children of all ages in the photos.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:01 am
OMG RQ, THANK YOU so much for posting this. I don’t know how you get all your great information, but THANKS so much.
This has to be one of the BEST/Moving posts I’ve read on this site!!!! How wonderful! The pictures are so moving. I’m sitting here filling up with tears! It’s amazing how much we take things for granted. Thanks for the reality check! JUST WONDERFUL. I’m scrolling through all the pics again.
Mauzzie
(How appropriate…My anti-spam word is XieXie!)
June 15th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Awesome!!!
June 15th, 2007 at 8:35 am
My daughter’s orphanage is the third one in the series (Xiushan). I had already seen the photos a couple of days ago. I get goosebumps thinking that 4 months ago, she was crawling around on those floors.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:46 am
I was SO touched by all the photos :-)
BRAVO to ACR ! I hope they’ll be able to visit ALL of the orphanages in China (did they go to Hunan yet?). Having clean water is a must ! Thank you ACR !!!
Ray.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:11 am
WOW! What a great organization, thanks for the link! Have to say I was surprised and saddened to see so many apparently healthy older kids at the orphanages, I think I’ve been harboring some delusion that most reasonably healthy kids get adopted. Wishful thinking I guess.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Thank you, thank you, thank you RQ for bringing this very important issue to our attention and sharing this link. The pictures are amazing!!!
June 15th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Incredible RQ…thanks…I had some idea about the older children, but….I am speechless…amazing endeavor..
June 15th, 2007 at 9:44 am
What a wonderful organization!!! I wonder if those orphanages participate in IA? There seemed to be many children there!!
June 15th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Thanks for the info here, RQ. I have bookmarked this and will be following this organization’s workings.
Yes, the pictures are priceless and I have to agree with CWS-wishful thinking that there would be less older children in the orphanages.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Sorry if this post twice. I posted earlier but have not seen my post yet.
Anyway…
OMG RQ, I don’t know where you get all your information, but THANKS so much. This has to be one of the BEST posts I’ve seen! THANK YOU for sharing this.
These pictures are so touching. I can’t stop looking at them!! Wow, clean water, something most of us take for granted. Thank you for the reality check! These pictures are so moving. I’m filling up with tears as I scroll through them.
RQ maybe you could do a link again to the post where it talks about how to donate to the Half the sky in RQ’s name. A lot of new folks probably missed that…..and would love to thank you in some way!
This is a GREAT post. Thanks again….who knows maybe some of our precious babies are in these photos.
Mauzzie
June 15th, 2007 at 9:52 am
We were very happy to hear of this organization and see the pictures as our daughter is waiting for us in Xiushan SWI. We had seen pictures from there, but they were a few years old. It was great to see some from last month! We are thrilled that for the last month she has been getting clean water. We only have to wait 2 more weeks, and we will finally have our daughter!
June 15th, 2007 at 9:53 am
In the 19+ months that we have been waiting (LID 11/10/05…next????) I have been a lurker on this site. This post has finally brought me out of the woodwork. Thank you RQ - for ALL that you do on this site, and specifically for this link. It just blew me away.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Wow! What a great organization. The photos were amazing. I was glad to see our DD’s orphange was included in the project.
June 15th, 2007 at 9:58 am
OK, now I am in tears…all those beautiful little faces. Two thousand children just in these 8 orphanages? What the…? How can it be that there are not enough available for adoption?
June 15th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Wonderful work and excellent pictures! Did anyone else wonder if one of the infants could be your daughter?
Kara
LID 12/9/05
June 15th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Amazing! Thanks for sharing this link. I was surprised to see that the SWI’s looked really clean and all but one of the orphanages had the babies sleeping on soft blankets.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Awesome pictures!! Can someone explain why there are so many “older” kids? Why weren’t they adopted as babies??
June 15th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Our girls are from Fuling SWI, which is the fourth of the Chongqing Municipality projects listed. Our parent group, Fuling Kids International, was able to support the Fuling portion of the project. As a bonus, a bunch of pics from the infant nurture program that we run there, First Hugs, got into the slide show. Such happy little faces to see, and I know one very lucky waiting mom who got to spy her sweetie in a few of them : )
The numbers are a bit overwhelming. In Fuling, for example, there were about 125 kids in the swi last summer and another 100 in foster care. Qianjiang had about 50 kiddos in foster care and another 50 living at the swi. The population seems to have grown since then.
The pictures really capture the feel of the SWIs. I was so lucky to be able to visit both Fuling and QJ last summer and it was amazing, and very much a bell ringer to say the least.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:20 am
First time post. Long time lurker. RQ - Thanks for bringing up this project. We are waiting on our LOA for our second daughter and have been discussing projects that we might want to sponsor. This looks great and we will be looking into it.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:03 am
RQ,
Thank you so much for sharing this - we’ve decided to make a donation in our fathers and my grandfathers names for Fathers Day (a perfect last minute gift!).
They will be very touched by the photos and intrigued by the water system itself (all are very handy and inquisitive about things with valves!).
I think that this site sums up why we were drawn to IA - just look in all the faces. The donation will bring our dads one step closer to our daughter!
Thank you.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:18 am
doIhear3 and any others interested in learning more about donating to Half the Sky, there’s a link under “Important Posts” in the righthand menu bar. Also, I’ll paste the link below:
http://chinaadopttalk.com/half-the-sky/
June 15th, 2007 at 11:19 am
I am all choked up here at the computer, eyes filled with tears and want to go in and wake up my baby girl in the next room. I am so very thankful for my daughter, for China in allowing us the privilege of raising their children and for the work of this organization.
(She just woke up. What timing!)
Laureen
http://www.babysites.com/sites/laureenmary
June 15th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Thanks so much RQ–I appreciate the opportunity to see inside the system.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:30 am
Amazing pictures! Thank you so much for posting this link. I couldn’t help but wonder if my baby was in there somewhere (LID 11/8/05!).
How does one go about volunteering for an organization like that? DH is a plumber so I can imagine his skills could be put to could use on a trip like that.
Thank you for all you do…I’ve been following this site since way back when!
Dilinn
June 15th, 2007 at 11:43 am
This looks like a great project. DD#1’s Yahoo SWI parent’s group is privately doing a similar project for the SWI. All of the children are in foster care, so the foster parents will be given a certain amount of water to take home.
It is amazing how we (as parents) and organizations (that we and others support) can make a difference. I hope such efforts are allowed to continue through the PRC’s Olympic season.
My anti-spam word is xie xie. I think clean water is a good way to say thank you to the PRC for the gift of my DD#1 and soon-to-be DD#2.
K.
P.S. It would be amazing if some of us see our DDs in those pictures.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Hi all,
I am the director of A Child’s Right so I am happy that the project is being well received. Those are all my photos as well so that is an extra bonus that people are being moved by those precious children. I hate to overload our site with photos, but I know how life changing my time in these orphanages is and I hope we convey how vibrant, tenacious, and beautiful these children are in a respectful way…
I just wanted to chime in about the numbers of children in China from my own experience. I have been going to China and dealing with the orphan care system there for several years. This is the first trip where I have seen an amazing decline in numbers of children in all of the orphanages we worked in. Every director affirmed that there has been a marked decline in abandonments while also seeing a significant increase in domestic adoptions.
The majority of children in the orphanages we worked in are, in fact, special needs children. Of the older children, most have been moved over to foster care type facilities. In most of the orphanages we were at, they have seen a 30-60% reduction in children. For example, one of the homes is a 6 story facility and presently 4 of those floors are shut down. Just two years ago every floor was full. Of the children in that home, half or more are children with special needs.
I wish everyone well as they journey towards their children. Hang in there, the end goal of uniting with one of these amazing children is very much worth the wait- even though that wait is unbelievably hard. These kiddos really are full of light and grace.
A big kudos to Half the Sky. I saw, once again, so many children being impacted by their work. As well, Fuling Kids International is really doing a good job emulating the HTS model and putting their own spin on things in Chongqing- and doing a darn good job at it too. Please support organizations like this as they are truly pushing positive and sustainable change throughout the orphan care system in China. Big thanks also to RQ for being there for the families and all her tireless work. It is an enormous feat she has taken on and she has done it rather brilliantly.
Thanks as well to all the RQ families who donated to our China project. We hope you continue to watch as our projects grow and let other people know about our work. We have solid and attainable goals and do very good work with very little means.
Take care,
Eric Stowe, Director
A Child’s Right
http://www.a-childs-right.org
June 15th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
RQ,
Thank you for posting this! I have spent most of my morning on this site in awe over the pictures. If nothing else, this will serve as an educational tool for my family and friends who can’t quite visualize what our child is going through.
Clean drinking water… I just walk up to the fridge and pour myself a nice cold glass whenever I want, sometimes taking 2 sips before abandoning my glass almost full…then pour it out and get another glass, because it just isn’t quite cold enough! I’ll be changing my own habits and hopefully sharing this site with everyone I know will change theirs too.
Thank you.
June 15th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Eric, Thank you so much for what you do, you truly are a blessing to those children. Thank you Thank you Thank you. Also, thanks for the info on the number of orphans you are seeing, that helps to know.
Those were awesome pictures. I have seen some photos from time to time of an orphanage here and there but nothing as complete as this. Really gives you a look in. Thanks
June 15th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Thank you to RQ & ACR, This really puts everything
in prespective for me. I was so very touched by
those photo’s. I feel so honored that I will be able
to call one of these special children my Daughter.
Thank you again!
Happy Father’s Day weekend!
Sindy
Lid 11/18/05 for Allie Taylor
http://www.ost.redthreadkids.org
June 15th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Thank you ARC(what a great organization),the photos are wnderful.And of course thank you so much RQ with out you i may never have been able to have the opportunity to come across the fabulous link.
June 15th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
I’m at a loss for words. The work being done, the beautiful photos, the emotion I’m feeling. It is all so powerful.
June 15th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Wonderful work! This project is a going to make a huge difference for these children. I just wonder with so many children ,why it takes so long to refer them. It just seems cruel to keeo them there any longer than they have to be. Thank you for the insight. This was my first real glimpse into the orphanages.
June 15th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Unbelievable…….speaking of tears…….we just finished visiting these pictures and viewed the orphanage of our daughter. It seems just like yesterday that we were there in Fuling. The kids all look so good. We recognized many of the rooms of the old building and now can see some of the new one. Still 350 there. Numbers were close to 400 a little over 3 years ago. Our daughter was one who shared a crib. Her room had 25 cribs and 40 babies. Wow, what a task but they did an amazing job with the care of these little ones. Bless all of their hearts…..
June 15th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Eric and his group do great work all over the world, so if you were moved by the pics, send him some cash….I have exchanged emails, and a little bit of money does a lot of good, less then what most of us will pend on trinkets from China, and this will help many other children….
June 15th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Wow, that is just amazing. And all those beautiful children!!!
June 15th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Thanks for sharing a link to such an important cause. The pictures where wonderful too! I can just imagine that my child might be from one of those orphanages!
June 15th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Thank you for sharing this site. What beautiful babies and children they all are. Is is a wonderful feeling seeing the smiles on everyones face and see them having a great time.
LID 11/09/05
June 15th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Hi All. First time poster. Thanks RQ for all the information and the link to A Child’s Right website. What an amazing thing they are doing. It is great to see the inside of a Chinese orphanage and of course the children! I wanted to comment about the number of adoptable children available in China. With all due respect to Eric, and since I have never been to a Chinese orphanage myself, nor can I deny what he has experienced, I beleive there are still thousand and thousands of children that are orphans. What we need to focus on here is the number of paper-ready children. Perhaps that has dropped in the past few years. I don’t have any statistics on that. But if you consider that there were approximately 127,000 adoptions in the US in 2000 (according to US Census Bureau stats, this included ALL types, including intercountry) and look at how they have further broken that down, they estimate about 28,000 private adoptions, as opposed to foster care or kinship adoptions. If you consider that China has a population more than 4 times that of the US, not to mention China’s population control policies, then it would seem to me that saying there were 100,000 orphans in China is not unreasonable. Maybe I am not doing the math right and I’m sure the figures aren’t exact, but it just seems to me that in a country as populous as China there just can’t be a shortage of babies, even considering they adopt out 6,500 to the US each year, and I don’t know how many to other countries, but it can’t be 93,500!!! I just wanted to put my 2 cents in and hope that people don’t start to panic and think they are running out of babies. If only we could get the paper-ready children available more quickly we would all be a WHOLE lot happier!
June 15th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I just want to comment on something here : There may be less children in the orphanages but I’ve noticed that more and more referrals say that the babies are in foster care. Are these taken in account ?
June 15th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Eric, I am so curious…were medications taken to treat the kids for giardia? I know on some trips to do the water filtration projects meds are taken, but I have not heard anyone mention this for the Chongqing trip. My daughter came home from Chongqing SWI 2+ years ago, she was terribly sick with giardia, I do mean SICK! It took 3 courses of drugs to clean her up, it was horrible for her (actually the whole family came home with it). I am so happy to know that the project is completed, I too was happy to contribute to this wonderful project.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
All those babies!!!!!!!!!! I am just sitting here feeling so incredibly heartbroken over all the orphans yet SOOO happy that clean water is going to make a difference!! HOORAY!!!
His,
Mrs. U
LID 9-12-05
referral 1-4-07
“Gotcha” Day 2-25-07 for Elizabeth
http://www.makingahouseahome.blogspot.com
June 15th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
Thanks RQ for posting the link. I noticed almost immediately that Fuling SWI in Chongqing was listed and I scanned those pictures so closely for a picture of my girl. Fuling is such an awesome place and I’m so happy that dd2 is coming home from there! We travel in July, and I hope she doesn’t have giardia, but am prepared to deal.
What a great project! Eric, are those pictures for sale somewhere? Can’t save them to my desktop but would like to have a copy of some of them :)
Snick
dd Sunshine 6
dd Brilliance 1, last Sunday, in Fuling, coming home in July
June 15th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Wow, I’d like to add my thanks to you for posting this RQ! Clean drinking water is something so basic to everyday life that we take for granted and yet another thing that these children don’t have on top of everything else.
It’s very interesting to get a peek at the orphanages and to see how much conditions vary between institutions. Some orphanages were clearly poorer than others.
The water purification systems were interesting too. I had heard of the UV pens for purifying water when on a backpacking trip, but I hadn’t realized that they had scaled up the technology.
I’m curious if anyone has traveled to China and used these UV pens for treating the hotel water?
June 15th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Thanks for the photos / information!
Other photos that may be of interest at (esp. #51 - a baby abandoned):
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20041223_1.htm
June 15th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Thanks so much for sharing this post RQ!
Here I am, tearing up again, after crying during work on my habitual ’sneak peek’ to CHAT. What terrific pictures and a wonderful organization.
Please wish RK a Happy Father’s Day for us!
June 15th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Wow, what amazing photos and, of course, beautiful children - I would take them all home with me if I could!
Fabulous work that this organization has undertaken! They definitely deserve our support.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:28 pm
OMG !!! I’ve truly been grounded. R.Q., you never cease to amaze me. I actually am speachless, and wish that I could say something as prophetic as I feel.
I would love to link these sites to my blog, is that allowed?
I wouldn’t want to infringe or overstep…….
I fell in love a hundred times at least, and now this makes me not only want my baby, but to think about an older child, if the new rules allow it, (should they slacken a bit).
I just took a peek before I logged off for the Evening, and my whole World just rocked…….
You’re not just the Rumor Queen, I dub you an “Angel”!
Shelley
lid 3/28/06 those photos will forever be etched in my mind
June 15th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Eric,
Simply and amazing project. So simple yet so effective. The photos are stunning. You should make one of those books from iphoto (my DH made one for me for Mother’s day).
We adopted from Fuzhou back in 2002 and back then there were about 400 kids in their care ( all but SN were n foster care). Today you report the numbers at 200 so there is most defintely a decline for this orphanage which I believe at one time was the largest in Jiangxi.
You can definitely see the differences in the smaller versus larger orphanages are far as facilities and furnishings. These larger SWIs have most definilty benefited from international adoption over the years. The smaller ones unfortunately are sometimes forgotten. We have a daughter from an SWI that cares for about 20 kids. They don’t have near the facilities and resources that a Fuling, or Fuzhou would have. Luckliy the families and POH helped us get them some much needed cribs, blankets and shoes.
Keep up the great work and looking forward to seeing more photos and projects. If I wasn’t trying to get a new non profit myself off the gound I’d be donating some money!
http://www.grantmeachance.com
June 15th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
What an amazing effort - I am just blown away and humbled by ACR’s efforts and by the pictures of all of those amazing children. Thanks so much RQ for alerting us to this wonderful organization and Eric to you and your team for this high impact work. It’s amazing how far a small amount of money can go to help so many children and I hope that ACR will continue to expand and reach more children. This organization clearly deserves to get on the radar screen of the World Bank, the Gates Foundation, or someone else with really deep pockets and I hope that it soon does. In the meantime my wife and I will be delighted to make a donation and will bookmark this website to track its achievements in the months ahead.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
As I was scrolling through the pictures explaining them to my children, my 3 year old son says, “That mommy has a LOT of babies!” I told him that they aren’t their mommies, they are their nannies. When I told him that they don’t have a mommy and a daddy to take care of them, he said, “When I grow up, I’ll be their Daddy.” I think it’s wonderful beyond words that there are organizations like this in the world. Not only have you helped these beautiful children but through your pictures, you have helped educate a young boy on compassion. These children, our children will be the ones carrying on this passion and continue making these necessities a reality. Thank you from the deepest part of THANK YOU for doing this for these innocent, precious beings.
Ha my anti-spam word is diapers… probably need one because these tissues aren’t enough for my tears! I need overnighters.
June 16th, 2007 at 11:26 am
We returned from China 10 days ago and I can report that I met one of these water system installers at breakfast at the Gloria Hotel in Nanchang…a wonderful guy doing wonderful work. He’s in photo 171 and some others. Thanks so much for the link!!
August 15th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Just found this website, we are bound for China in Oct. 07. Our daughter Xiu Fu Kai is at the Xiushan orphange, one of the ones seen in “a child’s right” wesite. I too was struck by these photos. But I was dumbfounded when I saw photo #60! Had I just found a more recent photo of our daughter? I emailed a child’s right to ask about thr photos and give a little more info. about a special need our daughter is supposed to have. A week later I was blown away when Eric Stowe the director send me confirming info. and 7 more pictures of our daughter, as well as telling me had spent a half hour with my daughters and her nannies! And just the other day he sent me the whole set of photos from that orphanage, 215 pics. I can’t express how much this means to me, and for seeing the difference his organization is making for these children. I really feel impressed to spread the word about this great organization, especially now that it has become so personal to us. Thanks again Eric!! , Sincerely Michal Thompson