Caring, benevolence and philanthropy have in some ways taken a back seat during this era of epidemic. But there are those who won’t quit, people who care about saving lives other than their own. Time to find out how they did it.
On 4 August in Nanjing, a baby was discovered abandoned on the street near to Wonder City shopping mall. On this hot evening, a thick quilt had been placed under a tree and some plastic bags around with the baby thereon.
The following day, Nanjing Police responded that the abandoned baby had been sent to an orphanage, reports The Paper.
The tragic story is reminiscent of the beginnings of local charity, Hopeful Hearts. With it and another of Nanjing’s principal charity organisations, the Rainbow Centre, being the beneficiaries in the upcoming second British Ball, The Nanjinger checked in with the charities to investigate how they have risen to the challenges presented by COVID over the past 2 and a half years.
But first we need go all the way back to Friday, 8 November, 2002. Two foreign ladies, Helene and Mira, were in a car passing Baima Park in Nanjing when Helene spotted against a tree by the side of the road a baby wrapped in a red blanket.
Writing in her diary, Helene said, “Meanwhile, two pedestrians had stopped and were looking at the baby without taking any action. Because we had a car, we decided to take the baby along and take it to a doctor. In the car we discovered it was a little boy. He had a note on his breast with his date of birth as well as ¥30. The date of birth was written in Chinese characters as well as the western date. The small child was very quiet and continued sleeping. Mira and I have passed that tree many times since then”.
Through friends and their contacts, Helene managed to have the baby examined professionally to discover he had two holes in his heart. While likely to heal naturally, any infection could be life threatening. Of Dr. Kong, the cardiologist, Helene wrote, “He refused to accept money for the visit to the orphanage and said, ‘if you foreigners are willing to help our children, what should I ask for’?”
It was during this time that the group of volunteering foreign ladies discovered there were 10 other children at the orphanage who also had heart problems. They took the decision to form “Hopeful Hearts”.
Some 20 years later, Hopeful Hearts keeps on beating. But COVID has had an enormous impact, hitting the charity in two ways. From the fundraising perspective, it was tremendously difficult to organise events, especially large-scale events for which many people would come together.
Then there were the families which the charity supports; a situation which was and is still to quite some extent very challenging. As the epidemic took hold, hospitals had to focus on fighting that rather than carrying out heart surgeries. Anything non-life-threatening was delayed. Then there was the hospital screening team that would usually would go out to the countryside to identify potential cases for Hopeful Hearts to take on. That wasn’t happening anymore. And of course there were also the families restricted in coming to Nanjing to access essential surgery for their children.
Rather than the large group activities, Hopeful Hearts concentrated on organising many small-scale fundraisers, by tapping into the talent of the Nanjing community; art classes, make-up workshops, handicraft events, sales of self-made products, and lectures or workshops by people passionate about their work or hobby.
Local restaurants supported the cause by dedicating their profit on certain days, while international schools, The British School of Nanjing and Nanjing International School, were in turn very supportive, organising fairs and markets for the school community and in favour of the charity.
Finally, Hopeful Hearts kept the funds coming in by cooperating with Alipay’s donation platform in 2020 together with the Amity Foundation, their legal umbrella organisation, to set up a platform that may receive monthly donations.
Speaking with The Nanjinger, Ellen Wieck-Mesarosch, Chair Person of Hopeful Hearts, spoke on the subject of hospitals being once again permitted to do heart surgery. She told us, “We’ve maintained close relationships with the fabulous team of the Second Hospital of Nanjing, in which as of today all our children are receiving their surgery”.
Back in the orphanage, The Nanjinger also spoke with Linda Huang, Director for the Rainbow Centre, on their challenges in the COVID era.
Set up in 2014, the Rainbow Centre provides palliative care and hospice care for critically-ill children, to make a bit of difference in the quality of their lives. Some children have afflictions that are simply incurable, others perhaps only months to live.
Critical to that effort have been the volunteers, referred to as “mothers”, reflecting an overarching lack of male helpers and that we are talking about, after all, an orphanage. Rainbow is one of just a handful of centres in China providing palliative care to orphans and other critically-ill children.
Huang began by telling us that their first priority was to ensure the safety of the children, especially given their extremely fragile condition.
Next, Rainbow strived to continue to implement their nursing plans, including daily life, medical treatment, rehabilitation and education.
When necessary, the Centre has also been operating a closed loop to ensure that all nursing plans are not affected. Staff work at the Centre for 7, 14 or 21 consecutive days.
However, voluntary services were required to be suspended, and to some extent, children had less activities to occupy their limited time. At first, there were those who showed some discomfort. Administrative staff stepped in to provide more support in bringing a touch of happiness to the children, arranging other time to complete their own work.
That happiness consists of a bit of that which other kids get to do. They’re given birthday parties, Christmas parties, something of the everyday we so often take for granted.
Huang told us, “We have been trying our best to ensure that the children’s life is rich and colourful. For example, yesterday we made ice cream moon cakes together with them children. They were very happy. Of course, we still look forward to seeing volunteers again”.
One week from today, both Hopeful Hearts and the Rainbow Centre shall be the beneficiaries in the second British Ball, being held in the Ritz Carlton, Nanjing, on the evening of Saturday, 17 September.
