Because every child, no matter how humble her beginnings, deserves loving care, and a chance at a bright future.

LiuShan-Love for Babies

HTS Field Supervisor, Liu Shan (above right):
I started working for Half the Sky as a nanny at the Xinyang Social Welfare Institution.  Then I became the Nanny Supervisor.  Last year I became an Infant Nurture Field Supervisor and travel all over for Half the Sky.. I loved working as a nanny because I spent so much time with the babies. But my job as a field supervisor is also gratifying....

The Earthquake in Sichuan

On the afternoon of Monday, May 12, 2008, a massive earthquake, measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale, rocked China. The epicenter was Wenchuan County, Sichuan, northwest of Chengdu. To learn more, please see HTS Journal.

If you wish to make a gift, please donate to HTS CHILDREN'S EARTHQUAKE FUND:

PART ONE - THE AFTERMATH

PART TWO - REBUILDING CHILDREN'S LIVES

PART THREE - THE BIG TOPS

PART FOUR - A 'NORMAL' LIFE

THE FOLLOWING PHOTOGRAPHS REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF HALF THE SKY FOUNDATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PART TWO

Children's Day, 2008 : Surviving children, now refugees, living in shelters line up for their traditional Children's Day gifts. Even brand-new school bags fail to bring smiles to their faces. The long, long healing process is just beginning.

CAREGIVER WORKSHOPS - During the days after Children's Day, Half the Sky held its first Sichuan Caregiver Training Workshops, beginning the process of helping shelter administrators and HTS field staff to train teachers, volunteers and other caregivers how to help the children deal with the complex emotions that follow such a disaster.

In cooperation with MCA and the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement, HTS began holding caregiver and volunteer trainings in the field. Below, NCSCB Program Coordinator, Dr. Robin Gurwitch and pediatric psychologist, Dr. Pi-nian Chang and HTS field supervisor, Han Guangshun work with children at the QinJian camp in Dujiangyan.

HONGBAI TOWN - On the one-month anniversary of the earthquake, HTS field staff and experts from NCSTB visited this remote, once-beautiful mountain town and held a training for teachers and volunteers in a tent school. On our first relief visit to Hongbai weeks earlier, the ruined town was still in shock. Now, slowly, it begins to rebuild its devastated community.

Both the middle school and the primary school in Hongbai Town collapsed. Hundreds of children were lost. Mourning parents and children who lost their classmates are encountered everywhere...lost in their grief.

At a tent school on the site of the collapsed middle school, soldiers still search for remains as children struggle to resume something like a normal life. We celebrate the birthday of 10 year-old twin girls. A little boy leads us to the site of his former primary school. With the help of his classmate, he tells his story of being trapped under the rubble in painstaking detail.

As difficult as their days are, the children are beginning to show the resilience that we at HTS know that all children possess. They will bounce back from this tragedy.

DUJIANGYAN - BIGTOP #1
With your help - and in cooperation with MCA, NCSTB, and Sichuan University's Mental Health Centre at Huaxi (West China) Hospital, Half the Sky is creating 10 "BigTop" children's activity centers in refugee camps in this town near the epicenter. Over the next three years, the BigTops will provide refuge and aid in the emotional recovery of thousands of orphaned and displaced chlidren. The first BigTop opened on June 14, 2008 - just one month after the quake.

PART THREE - BIG TOPS

If you wish to make a gift, please donate to HTS CHILDREN'S EARTHQUAKE FUND: