Comments on: ACR, A Child’s Right: Clean Water Project

By: momtofive

momtofive — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:44:35 +0000

First of all, I would love to say thank you to A Child’s Right for installing a water system in my little girl’s orphanage. I truly appreciate all of those who sponsored and donated time and money for clean water.
Also, I think it is still important to have your child tested for giardia. We had our little girl tested for it and she tested positive (both daughters from China did- but only one daughter’s orphanage had the system). The test is easy (and a bit gross :) ) but important. (I was surprised that both girls tested positive because they did not seem to be in pain or have symptoms- but I have learned they have high pain tolerance). Anyway, I share this not to discourage sending money to A Child’s Right (we will donate to this great organization) but to make sure parents still test their child even though the system is in place.
(My anti-spam word is Jiangxi – the province our baby is from)

By: dangerboy

dangerboy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:52:39 +0000

Providing access to clean water is very important. However, Pinkpunch, I’d just like to make the point that the primary cause of the majority of deaths in young children due to diarrhea is inadequate breastfeeding…UNICEF puts the figure at 1.5 mill a year and recent research indicates that the no 1 intervention to decrease mortality is breastfeeding support programs for mothers. Now obviously in situations where children do not have mothers available and where wet nursing is not common such as in Chinese orphanages, providing clean water removes one important risk factor.
Hey and wouldn’t you know it, my anit spam word is formula!

By: yviefaye

yviefaye — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:50:39 +0000

Eric
Thankyou

By: ACR intl

ACR intl — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:17:52 +0000

Hi there,

The last conversation I had with the government in December there were 600+ orphanages countrywide. A significant number of these are consolidating/merging/relocating/closing (due to a number of different factors) and in a few years this number should be much closer to our 400 target range.

As with all things related to statistics in China, someone else will have different numbers and a completely different take on things- but this is our understanding from working fairly closely with the government…

Best, Eric

By: yviefaye

yviefaye — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:01:40 +0000

Does anybody know how many orphanages are in the international adoption programme and how many exist in total in china. I was looking at the clean water programme and trying to count up numbers of orphanages per region. Perhaps Eric stowe has information that could shed some light on the number of orphanages in China.
Please reply

By: PinkPunch

PinkPunch — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:17:01 +0000

I love what this organization is doing for the children. And what another poster said is true. I volunteer for world vision and the numbers are staggering. Back when I started working with WV there were 30,000 children globally dying everyday to preventable illnesses like diarreah from dirty water and the like. Due to them and other organizations like ACR, the number is down to 27,000 a day. That may not seem like much, but multiply it out over a year and that’s 1,095,000 more children LIVING a year. It’s hard to wrap our Western minds around so many children dying from such “simple” things.

Thanks for bringing attention to this again RQ.

By: luvluv

luvluv — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:03:21 +0000

How do you know if your child has giardia? What are the sypmtoms and can you take anything with you from the doctor to treat your child in case your child has it when you get her/him?

By: ACR intl

ACR intl — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:06:38 +0000

To ratgirl: yes, I remember the orphanage and we actually sent our staff there immediately, thanks to someone in your group notifying us about the giardia incident. We did multiple water quality tests to verify if it was an issue with the system or an issue with hygiene. It was the latter and that is, sadly, something we cannot mitigate with the water systems. However, this is an exceptional incident and one that bucks the current trend with any of our installations in any country.

The majority of installs see an immediate and sharp decline in stomach maladies, dyssentary, failure to thrive, etc, amongst the children. This is also the case at the orphanage you mention as the incidence rate of diarrheal illnesses was significantly reduced after our installation. We cannot, though, stop every single occurrence from getting through.

The reality is that in the poorer orphanages (and this was one of the poorest I have seen in a while), and even in some of the better funded ones at times, hygiene education is lacking. We do perform handwashing classes and training when the government allows. However, the majority of cases of giardia (and other bacteriological and viral infections like this) in these institutional settings comes from unclean water. This is our primary focus and the impacts are tremendous on many levels.

Unfortunately, there are breaks in the system when poor food preparation or very unsanitary conditions sneak through the barrier we set up. On the plus side, these are very few and far between once the water is treated.

Thanks for the reminder to all parents that the system being set up is not impenetrable. It is, though, a massive firewall against the issues most commonly seen affecting health and development for the children within these sites.

Thanks to Eve for sending this along for me to comment. Thanks to RQ for her support of our work!

Hope this finds all the parents well as you are home with your children or waiting to unite with your child.

Best, Eric

Eric Stowe, Director
A Child’s Right

By: ratgirl

ratgirl — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:10:31 +0000

I hate to be a cynic, but one of these systems was put in at the orphanage that my kid comes from, but the kids are still coming out of that orphanage with giardia. We were told that the problem is likely to do with poor sanitary practices (i.e. handwashing) on the part of the staff.

By: sllflorida

sllflorida — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:48:52 +0000

FindingHope: I believe if you click on the Contact/Sponsor button on the China Project page, you can enter your contact information along with the orphanage you wish to sponsor. That will put you in contact with someone who will then email you information on the donation process.