In 1979 the Chinese government instituted a "one child per family" policy in order to gain some control over its exploding population. Tragically, the one-child policy collided with a longstanding cultural preference for male descendants, and the people of China began giving up their baby girls.
The devastating result is that several hundred thousand abandoned little girls languish today in state-run orphanages in China. Life for a girl in China is not easy, but, because Chinese society is deeply rooted in the family, life for a girl with no family is unspeakably tough. Education is her best--perhaps only--hope. That is why Half the Sky Foundation was created: to help prepare these little girls for life outside institutional walls, to give them a chance to reach their potential, like their more fortunate peers.
Half the Sky Foundation (named for the Chinese adage "Women hold up half the sky") was created in 1998 by adoptive families who wished to maintain a tie to China, their daughters' first home, and who are committed to enriching the lives and enhancing the prospects for these forgotten children by providing infant nurture and early childhood education centers inside orphanage walls.
Half the Sky's Mission
To fulfill its mission, Half the Sky, in cooperation with the China Population Welfare Foundation and the China Social Work Association, both Beijing NGOs, has created two programs: Baby Sisters Infant Nurture Centers and Little Sisters Preschools. The Baby Sisters Infant Nurture Centers employ HTS-trained "nannies" from the local community to cuddle, love and provide orphaned babies with the physical and emotional stimulation essential to the normal development of the brain and psychological well-being.
In our Little Sisters Preschools, HTS-trained teachers use a unique and progressive curriculum that blends principles of the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education with the contemporary Chinese teaching methods. The program is designed not only to prepare the children to succeed in Chinese schools, but also to help develop the "whole child," to help her attain the positive sense of self so often missing in institutionalized children.
By the end of 2002, HTS will be offering services to over 1200 children in eight institutions.
Qualitative assessment of the program is made possible through frequent progress reports on each child by the teachers, and on each teacher by the supervisor. In addition, regular quantitative evaluations through standardized instruments are an essential part of the program. Children in the pilot project were given developmental assessments in April and July of 2000, before the program began, using the Bayley and Battelle instruments. They were assessed again in February 2001 by Kathryn Dole and Pi-Nian Chang, both of the International Adoption Clinic. In August 2000, Half the Sky's preschool-age children were also tested using Beijing Normal University's Developmental Scale of Chinese Children. Before the program began, all but one child scored at or below the 5th percentile. In December these children were re-tested and each scored at the 35th to 40th percentile. (The child in the exception initially scored at the 35th percentile, and at re-testing she scored at the 77th.)
The Future of Our Work With Half the Sky
In cooperation with the International Adoption Clinic, Half the Sky will continue assessments in the new centers using the Bayley instrument for infants and the Battelle and Chinese Developmental scale for preschoolers; baseline assessments were performed in March 2002 by Dole and Chang on the children in our new programs in Chengdu and Chongqing.