Wednesday March 28, 2007
Welcome to the Yunnan Kids International (YKI) blog! This blog has been created to give you up to the minute news about happenings with YKI.
YKI was started by some dedicated and earnest parents of Yunnan children who wanted to address the desire to give something back to the province their children are from. We are all volunteers. It has been our dream for a very long time to create YKI. Almost from its inception, YKI has met its goals of giving.
Our first project raised close to $6,000 to help with building a new community center [photo above] in a rural foster care village in an area called Anning, where many children from the Kunming Children's Welfare Institute reside with loving families. We were able to partner with Sunrise Foundation, a highly trusted organization that has worked in Kunming for many years. This was very important to us.
This winter, to commemorate a new year, we were able to raise some funds for some children in a far western county - an area called Longchuan. This area is near Myanmar and Laos and many children in this area of need are victims of the AIDS epidemic. Many parents of these children are infected with HIV and some children have also tested positive. YKI strives to partner with organizations we know and trust and for the children of Longchuan, we are pleased to work with Dr. Peggy Gurrad/Altrusa Foundation and Holt International in raising funds for the children in Longchuan. To date, we have sent Altrusa $1,750. This is very close to our initial goal of $2,000. These funds were used to buy much needed new winter clothing. It is our hope to provide more assistance to children in Longchuan in the future. Their needs are dire.
We also were able to send a $300 donation this spring to Robert van Cappellen of the Panbi Foundation. His group has been working in the Kunming Orphanage and elsewhere in Yunnan serving children with special needs for many years. This will pay to sponsor a worker with kids who have various needs. Sometimes, this might mean a worker can stay in the hospital with a child who needs surgery. The photo below was just received of a worker in Kunming with a little boy who is about to have cleft surgery. In the photo, this worker is writing a report on the boy. We hope to send more funding for workers in the future.
We are thrilled to have been able to help out in these different ways in our first year!
Other project news for 2007 is yet to come. An exciting Spring Auction is being planned for April where we will be featuring some lovely and unusual items from Yunnan and other parts of China. We'll keep you all posted! For more information, please visit our website at www.yunnankids.com
If you have specific questions regarding the work of YKI, please write to us directly at: ykidsinternational@yahoo.com
As always, heartfelt thanks for your interest in YKI and for your support and encouragement.
