"The Centre Opened my World" says Hua Wen

Today, Hua Wen (11) is visiting his old school in Changsha where he studied for a year before joining a regular school.

His mother, He Ming Ming (34) relates to us how she believed it to be utterly unthinkable that her son could ever join a "regular" school, but that was before he attended the Speech and Hearing Rehabilitation Centre. 

The year at the centre enabled Hua Wen to communicate with the world around him. Hua Wen has many good memories from his time as a student at the Hearing Centre. His favorite dishes are spinach and beef strips. His favorite hobby is painting. 

Cao YeBing would like to be a farmer!

Cao YeBing曹烨彬 (8) is from Cheng Zhou (郴州) in Hunan Province (湖南) in China. He has attended the deaf School in ChangSha for three years where he also lives. If he could not stay there with the other boarding pupils, he could probably not go to a school at all. For breakfast, he likes best to eat baozi (which is a type of doughnut filled with meat). His favourite subject is drawing, but he also loves to dance. When he grows up, he dreams of becoming a farmer. In the evenings, he likes to watch TV. On his day off school, Sunday, he likes to walk in the park with the student volunteers from the university who come to be with Cao YeBing and other boarding pupils.

Cao YeBings mother left him and his father when YeBing was small because the father is handicapped and has some mental problems. After YeBin started his studies at the centre and learned to speak etc.  his mother has been in contact with deaf centre and has resumed contact with both YeBin and his father. In this way, this deaf centre has helped to reconcile many families.

He dreams of becoming a farmer when he grows up. Growing up, he only saw farmers cultivating the land, growing grain, vegetables that can be eaten. He does not know of other work that would not let him be hungry, so he thinks that being a farmer is the best of all.

Chen ShuZhao dreams about becoming a nurse

Chen ShuZhao/陈述钊（6）is from ChaLing (茶陵) in Chuzhou (株洲) in Hunan province (湖南) in China. He has attended the deaf school in Changsha one and a half years. There he is day-student and lives with his parents. He gets up every day at 7am. First he washes his face then brushes his teeth and puts on clothes before he eats breakfast. For breakfast he eats noodles almost every day. Mum takes him to school almost every day. But on the day off, Sunday, his grandmother often takes him to the park. He likes very much! In his class, there are 13 students. The name of his teacher is Miss Zhou, but he also has individual lessons with a different teacher each day.

When he grows up, he wants to become a nurse. His favourite food is (Chinese) sausage and chicken. His favourite subject is drawing but he also thinks dancing is a lot of fun!

Unusual brothers

Huang-RuiJie(黄锐杰)(6) & Huang-YuQi(黄玉其)(2) are very special in China! Why? They are brothers! In most parts of China, it is illegal to have more than one child. Therefore, it is very unusual in Changsha City, where they live, to have siblings. The boys like Sundays especially because they have time off from school and can play with mum and dad. These guys are the only kids at the deaf centre in Changsha with siblings.

The reason their parents have been allowed to have two children is that they come from the countryside, where some places are allowed to have two children. YuQi (黄玉其)  thinks it is terrific to have a brother!

Huang-RuijJie said that when he grows up, he wants to be a father. In his impression, fathers are really great. His father earn money to support the family, enabling  him and his brother who is similarly hearing impaired to receive training at the deaf children rehabilitation centre.

Their father is a driver and their mother works in a grocery store.

His father is a truck driver and works very hard daily driving the truck. The thought of his precious two sons being able to speak and interact through the training, makes him happy.

Chu NiKe dreams of becoming an industrial worker

Chu NiKe/屈妮可(6) is a girl from LouDi (省娄底) in Hunan province(湖南 ) in China. She lives at the deaf Centre in Changsha because her dad works in ShenZhen and her mum works in Zhuzhou. Both cities are far away from Changsha City. But every Friday, her mum comes to be with her and on Sunday and holidays, they are together all the time! For breakfast, Nike likes to drink warm milk and eggs, but for lunch she prefers chicken. Otherwise she especially likes to eat sweets and cakes!

When she grows up, she wants to be a worker or teacher. Her parents are workers in a factory. She loves her father and mother, so she thinks that being a worker is brilliant! She is a resident student in the school. She has learnt a lot from her teacher, whom she really likes.

Sometimes, Nike actually teaches her mum things because NiKe has been learning so many fun things at the ChangSha deaf centre! She teaches her mum Chinese characters and sometimes mathematics. It is fun! Her favourite subject, however, is singing because she likes to sing.

Yin JinKang will celebrate with the headmaster.

Yin JinKang尹金康(5) is from Huaihua (怀化) in south-west Hunan Province, China. He has attended the Changsha deaf centre for two years, where he also lives. For breakfast, he likes best to eat baozi, which is a type of donut or dumpling filled with meat. Otherwise he likes very much to eat apples and all foods with lots of chilli. His favourite subject is art.
In the evenings, he likes to watch TV. On his day off school, Sunday, he likes to walk in the park with the volunteers from the university who likes to hang out with Yin JinKang and other boarding students. Yin JinKang says that he loves going to school. He likes it even more than being at home!

Yin JinKang is her sitting on the lap of Jefrey Huseby, the  General  Secretary of NMS

When I asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up, he said that he wants to be a doctor because his mother is suffering from cancer and his father being old and disabled cannot take care of him. He hopes he can cure his mother's illness, so his mother can take care of him and he will not be sent to the orphanage.

Since he started studying at the ChangSha Deaf Centre, she has not been able to visit him more than once (for the Chinese New Year last year). Unfortunately, his mother is too sick to visit him for Chinese New Year this year due to her illness, so Yin JinKang will celebrate Chinese New Year with the headmaster Wang and her family tomorrow.

Yin JinKang does not have any family who can take care of him except his mum. His mum would not like JinKang to end up in one of the many orphanages. So, she is one of the parents who have asked the headmaster of the school, Mrs. Wang, if she can personally take care of her son after she dies.

Irene: Now found at a good University!

Some of you may remember a girl we called "Irene" who was thrown out by her parents because she was unable to speak due to the fact that she was hearing impaired. When I recently asked the headmaster of the ChangSha Deaf Centre, Mrs Wang, about "Irene" her face lit up with a warm smile. Irene has just been accepted at one of Chinas top 10 Universities. Quite the Christmas present! This in itself is amazing for a girl from the countryside in this vast country. When you remember that she is hearing impaired, this is even more incredible. Looking back, it now seems almost unreal for her incredibly proud parents to imagine that they only 12 years ago gave her to the headmaster of the deaf school and had no intention of seeing her again.

Without the Deaf Centre in Changasha, it is questionable if Irene would be alive, be able to speak or have any formal education. Irenes story is one of many life stories that shows how life can turn out when Gods love is poured on people and igniting hope really can change more than one can imagine!

If you would like to read the rest of her story, you can read about it in English or Norwegain depending on your preference. It is really a pleasure to see the joy in this deaf centre!

Annual report from the ChangSha Deaf Centre

One of my favourite jobs is coordinating support to the Changsha Deaf centre. This has been an exciting year for the centre.

16 teachers have taken the Hunan Province teacher certificate and passed. They have also attended other training courses throughout the year. Most of the teachers are very young and work very long hours, for very little pay because the centre just does not have the money to increase their wages. As a result, teachers do become burnt out and there is a high turn over rate in the staff. Having said that, the teachers are very dedicated, it is obvious that they love the children and due to their amazing dedication the centre has gone from strength to strength.

The centre continues to hold parent training courses, which have proven popular and an effective way of helping the parents help their children.

The centre serves many families who cannot afford the school fees. For this reason, though the cost of living has increased in China, the school and boarding fees haven’t. Of course, this means that the school struggles. Teacher’s wages are low, the school itself is very basic and is in need of some desperate repairs. In fact, the centre could really do with new premises.
The school has a floor in a residential block of flats and many of the neighbours are very unhappy that the school shares their building. The school has a small outdoor area that other flats can see into. Before the children used to play there, but because neighbours used to throw things at them, they have had to stop that. Now the children do not go outside unless they are taken for a special trip to the park.

During the summer we took our three children, Natasha, Kari Sophia and Jakob to visit the Deaf centre, so that they could see what kind of work NMS does. Whilst we were there, our kids got to play with the children in the centre and both sets of children entertained each other with little shows. Our children liked meeting the kids and spending time with them. They were touched by how basic the centre was: the number of children sleeping in each room, the smell of the toilets, the food, the mouldy ceilings and the heat in the centre because they can’t afford to use aircon. We later found out that it hadn’t just been our children who had enjoyed the visit. Apparently, the children at the centre loved meeting and playing with the “foreign “ kids, talked about it for days and even told their parents how exciting it was!!

Changsha Deaf Centre has greatly benefited from your support. It literally would not be able to operate in the way it does today if it wasn’t for you who support this project. Thank you for your support! From Marieke

Ji Lanqing - not really a difficult boy.

One of the most inspiring things I get to do is to coordinate our cooperation with the rehabilitation centre for hearing impaired Children in ChangSha City in Hunan Province, China. It is very exciting to get to see how the school is making a big difference to these children and it is very admirable to see how keen the headmistress and teachers are on doing a good job to give these children a better future.

Over 100 hearing impaired children attend the Deaf Centre in ChangSha, central China. The school accepts children that many other schools refuse to give access. This is sometimes because they don’t have the money to pay the fees, sometimes because the child has multiple disabilities, sometimes because the child is perceived to be difficult.

Ji Lanqing is one of these children. Ji Lanqing is six years old, he is deaf and he has attention deficiency hyperactive disorder. When he first arrived at the school he couldn’t say a word. He screamed, was very angry and was difficult to control. Because of this, other rehabilitation schools had refused to accept him. Understandably, his mother was upset and desperately wanted to help her child. So soon after Ji Lanqing started to attend Qi Yin School she attended one of the parent training sessions. After that there was no turning back. She regularly attended training sessions, participating eagerly and, finally, started to assist at the school itself in an effort to help her child. Quickly, she mastered the basics of rehabilitation training and started to daily help her child in a one to one setting both at school and at home.

After only a few months Ji Lanqing has improved greatly. He can now speak sentences of 4 to 5 words in a go, he can communicate with those around him and he is no longer so frustrated. Ji Lanqing’s mother is very happy. She says that the school has given her and her son hope.

Unfortunately, the rehabilitation centre could not survive and help this many children without the support of NMS. If you are one of the people supporting this project, thank you! Perhaps you’d be interested in supporting this project? If so, click here.

This article is written by Marieke Rode-Christoffersen

Annual report for the ChangSha Deaf Centre 2010

Chansha school for deaf children is a great example of God’s love being shown practically to the people of Hunan province. If this school did not exist many of its students would not be attending school. Both because the local schools won’t enroll them and also because the majority of the students are too poor to go anywhere else. The school faces many challenges. It receives no support from the government, so all its support comes from churches and organisations such as NMS. The neighbours of the school dislike having the school in their building and sometimes throw rubbish at the children, because of this the school is looking for better premises. There is also a high teacher turn over rate. It is not easy working at the school, the hours are long and the pay is not great. And yet, the school still has one of the best reputations in the country amongst the hearing impaired community.

The school is situated in Hunan province in China. It was started in 2002 by Mrs Wang. She originally started the school because her own son, who is hearing impaired, was unable to get a place in a regular government school.

Since then the school has gone from strength to strength. It started with only a handful of students and yet now has over 90 full time students. 80% of the students come from poor rural backgrounds. 7 of which receive scholarships as their family’s are too poor to pay the small fee that is needed to study here. The students range from 2 to 7 years old. The school is a boarding school, so all the students live and study at the facility.

There are more than 40 staff members at the school. With the money that the school receives the staff has been able to carry out several training programmes and send several teachers on courses to improve their education. This year the school has started holding training sessions for the parents, these sessions encourage parents to become involved in their child’s education and teaches them how to do this.

This year, 17 former students have managed to enroll in regular primaries and kindergartens. Chang Sha school for deaf children has a much higher success ratio at helping children integrate into the mainstream Chinese school system than the government facilities do. Their success ratio is 40% to 45%, whilst the government institutions is only 25%.

Many parents come back later to say thank you to Mrs Wang and the school for the amazing help that she has given their children.

The school has gone on several outings for fun and also to help promote awareness of the hearing impaired. On China’s national “Love the Ear day” the students and teachers went to the park, gave out leaflets and demonstrated to people how to better look after your ears!

Thank you for all your prayers and support, as you have read, it is greatly needed, appreciated and gives life changing results.

The bittersweet story of MeiLin

Life can be harsh in China. MeiLin, who was born deaf, has already experienced how.

Poor family

Her family is quite poor, partly as a result of her father also being disabled as he has only one hand. In China people are often ashamed of disabilities.

Embarrassed mother

Her mother was so embarrassed about the fact that her daughter could not speak that she abandoned MeiLin. She did not visit or see her daughter for a whole year.

A thriving girl

Fortunately, MeiLin enrolled in Changsha Deaf Centre. She is a smart little girl, eager to learn and at Changsha Deaf Centre she thrived. With the help of her teachers she learnt to speak.

When her uncle found out that she could speak he was so happy that he decided to get in contact with his sister and he convinced her that she should return home. The mother returned and is now a part of the family again!

Peace

Reverend Yao, leader of XinDe foundation who started the centre, remarked that “the improvement of this little girl is going to bring reconciliation to her broken up family”. The head teacher of the school, Mrs Wang, said “This is an unexpected result. The peace of God transcends all understanding.”

Great opportunity!


It’s fantastic that girls like MeiLin, who otherwise would have no chance to go to school, can come to the deaf centre in ChangSha! We wish you a very blessed Christmas!

Summer in the ChangSha Deaf Centre

This spring has been an exciting time in the ChangSha Deaf Centre. Due to your continued support, we are now able to now admit 102 students from 2-7 years that would otherwise would have a very uncertain future. With your support, we are not only able to keep the school fees low enough so that quite poor households can afford this education, but we are also able to admit 7 students from very poor households free of charge.

Even though the children in our centre are from poor households and as deaf children often have a disadvantage in today’s China, we are very excited about the fact that they are reaching out to the community and bring happiness to others. In China, Children’s day (June 1^st) is celebrated in a big way. This day, children and parents, along with the leaders, gathered in the botanical garden to have a party, celebration and a performance.
On May 16^th, National Disability Day, they carried out activities involving caring for the handicapped in the local community by giving performances. For the National Ear Care Day, the children carried out a public campaign and education programs about ear care in the park using performances, leaflets, and consultation methods. It is exciting to see how the children thrive on doing performances and making others happy!

Seeing what a blessing the ChangSha deaf centre is to our students, we are very happy that our headmaster, Xueying Wang, was able to go to Huaihua to help setting up a new rehabilitation center for deaf children!

Our premises are still quite small, so we are delighted that volunteers from local universities and secondary schools often come to take the children to visit museums, go to the parks or river the banks for activities of different types.

Since our last blog post, we have also run a lot of training sessions for parents and teachers. We added a new regular parent training session every Friday this year to encourage parents to participate in the rehabilitation of deaf children and learn to communicate with and share more with their children. We can see how this is having a positive effect. Our teachers have been trained by experts from both the University of Melbourne (Australia) and Taiwan and our teachers have also taken part in the Hunan Symposium about the rehabilitation of deaf children.

We praise God for His blessings and protection!

Irene: Left and found

Recently, a mother brought her 15-year-old daughter ,Irene, to the office of the headmaster of the ChangSha Deaf Centre, Wang XueYing. The mother was really excited and told Wang that the girl is now a student on Grade 3 in one of the best middle schools in the City of XiangTan. She won the 19^th place among 200 competitors of selected middle school students in the Olympics Math Contest. The mother brought the child to Changsha from XiangTan just to report this good news to the headmistress, Mrs. Wang. She talked with tears in her eyes. If it was not for the hearing aids in the girl’s ears, you might not even notice that she had any problems hearing.

Ten years ago, when she was five years old, her parents found out she was not able to speak because she was deaf. They sent her to the School for Deaf Children in ChangSha where Wang is the headmistress and went back home to prepare to have a new healthy baby instead of taking care of Irene. For two years, her parents didn’t come to Changsha to see their daughter or pick her up to go home. Even during Spring Festival (the biggest holiday in China) she had no place to go but to stay at the headmaster’s home, Mrs. Wang.

When Irene turned seven years old, the headmistress, Mrs Wang approached several schools, but Irene was not accepted by any of them. Finally, Mrs. Wang went to the primary school near her home and tried to enroll her as her own daughter with her own child’s name. Mrs. Wang promised the school that if the child could not catch up with the lessons, they could dismiss her at any time. At the end of the first semester, the child got full scores in every course except music. The head master of the school of the primary school hugged her in front of all the teachers and students in the assembly and said, “She is the pride of our school. She is the best!” After this, her parents came to Changsha to pick up their child and she finally got to live with her parents again.

God has given Headmistress Mrs. Wang a number of hearing impaired children to love and take care of. He has also given her love and compassion so that she can take good care of each child in the centre independently of their financial background. She is very proud of these children and is thankful to God for His blessings and provision.

The Headmaster of the ChangSha Deaf Centre, Mrs. Wang and Rev. Jane Yao, the leader of the Three Self Patriotic Movement in HuNan who manages the ChangSha Deaf Centre.

Love Makes a Difference

Chen Rui is a pretty little girl from western Hunan province in the grand People's Republic of China. What has given this angel a tragic start to her life is that she lives in a soundless world. When we first came to ChangSha Language Training Center, the two-year-old child looked all round her for the colorful toys and playmates. In her mother's arms, she was very anxious and excited to express her feelings and used these sounds: “wala wala wuwu” (this does not mean anything in Chinese), but we did not understand her. She smiled, but her mother started crying.

In the ChangSha Deaf Centre, she learnt to feed herself, put on shoes, do up the buttons and a series of other useful skills. A month later, she could already say “ma-ma” and “ba-ba” (“Mother” and “Father” in Chinese). However, as she lives in a mountainous area in HuNan and her family is suffering financial hardship, they could not easily afford the best hearing-aid and this made it difficult for her to hear or understand anything. Her parents were very sad and her teachers were dreadfully sorry for her.

In 2007, she got a new hearing aid. She has noticeably improved her hearing. Now she is able to distinguish sounds clearly. What a big change for her! Chen Rui has made tremendous progress in her study. After a year of rehabilitation, her hearing ability has reached Grade III. Now she takes the initiative to communicate with others in words.

Her parents were very pleased with her progress. They were so excited that they could hardly find suitable words to express their gratitude, but kept on saying: Thank you! Thank You! Love really makes a difference! Thank you to all supporters for your support to the ChangSha Deaf Centre. If you are interested in helping children like Chen Rui, please send a mail or if you understand Norwegian, please make a donation here.  

Changsha Deaf Center Project Progress Report

Here is a new update on the ChangSha Deaf Centre:

Xinde Rehabilitation Center is a non-profit organization providing rehabilitation service for handicapped children. It was founded by the Church of Hunan Province in Changsha City in the year of 2001. The center was registered in the Bureau of Civil Affairs in the same year and started to work for children with learning difficulties and hard of hearing.

Their very good rehabilitation services for deaf children have given them a good reputation as a reliable centre among the families with deaf children. More and more children are asking to go to this school, making the need for expansion more and more urgent. This also means a need for more places, more equipment, more teachers and improvement of teachers’ capacity. This all translates into the need for more investment.

There are 100 children and 25 teachers in the school that currently occupy 700m². Most of the children are from poor mountainous areas in Hunan Province. Their families are quite poor and could not afford the cost for rehabilitation if they had to pay for it themselves. These people need external help and support, so the centre is greatly appreciative for NMS’s support.

Completed Activities:

During the reporting period Changsha Deaf Center has successfully purchased new equipment, desks, chairs and toys for children with disabilities.
A training program has also been given to teachers in the center.

Changsha Deaf Center has devoted itself to the rehabilitation of deaf children. In 2009, the center improved basic facilities for living and studying for the children. New equipments for audition testing and adjustment have been purchased.

In addition to this, new desks, chairs and toys are bought in, and electricity supply system has been reconstructed so that the center can avoid power cuts in summer, which was frequent in the past. The Center also taught the children how to protect themselves and avoid accidental injuries. Two parents training sessions have been held to help the parents.

They learned how to develop their children’s audition, how to communicate with their children etc. Sixteen teachers went to XiangYa Hospital to study audiology for a whole day, and one teacher was sent to Beijing to study audiology for a week.

Results:

Thanks to the generous contribution from Norwegian Mission Society, the teaching facilities of the center have been improved, while teachers feel more confident to serve for children with disabilities.

With the basic equipment, the center is now able to test children’s audition and provide more effective instruction to develop the children’s audition.

With improved facilities and better equipped teachers and parents, the children are able to make better progress. It is such a pleasure to see how these great kids are developing and interacting!

Moreover, these well-trained teachers could be able to undertake more tasks that they didn’t know how to do in the past. The advanced knowledge they received will help them do better work in the future.

The ChangSha Deaf Centre

Changsha Deaf Center has devoted itself to the rehabilitation of deaf children. In 2009, the center tried to improve basic facilities for living and studying for the children. New equipments for audition testing and adjustment have been purchased, and the center is able to test children’s audition and provide more effective instruction to develop the children’s audition.

In addition to this, new desks, chairs and toys are bought in, and electricity supply system has been reconstructed so that the center can avoid power cuts in summer, which was frequent in the past. The Center also taught the children how to protect themselves and avoid accidental injuries. Two parents training sessions have been held to help the parents.

They learned how to develop their children’s audition, how to communicate with their children etc. Sixteen teachers went to Xiangya Hospital to study audiology for a whole day, and one teacher was sent to Beijing to study audiology for a week. With improved facilities and better equipped teachers and parents, the children will be able to make better progress. It is such a pleasure to see how these great kids are developing and interacting!

If you’re interested in supporting this project financially, please send me an e-mail telling me where you live or leave a message to this blog post and I’ll look into the best ways for the funds to be channelled to this project. If you read Norwegian, you can donate this way.

If you'd like to read more about this project in Norwegian, click here.