Pat and Kathys first day at SCH

Pat and Kathy hit the ground running their first day at SCH

WOW what a day!! We had a very courteous meeting with the new director and assistant director of Shanghai Children's Home (SCH). We discussed our schedule for the week which includes formal lectures on speech therapy, cerebral palsy, and autism, hands on workshops about development and play, and of course evaluations of Gladney's partnership waiting children. We cannot wait to see the children and hug them all!

We also described how Superkids was started by Gladney mom and humanitarian aid program specialist, Janet Fink. Janet's daughter, Jeannie, was adopted from the SCH when she was a little over two years old. Jeannie had a diagnoses of crossed eyes and nystagmus, both which were corrected several years ago. We showed her a picture of Jeannie (now she is 8!) and they were so happy to see her looking healthy and happy! The staff at SCH cares very much about all their children and work very hard to provide nurturing environments for them!

We began with a visit to the "Snoopy room." The children ran towards us, arms in the air, trying to touch us. They were ADORABLE! We then went to rehabilitation center to provide evaluation and treatment plans for two orphanage children. What makes SCH wonderful is their rehab center, which treats both orphans living on campus and children living in the outside community. Families living in Shanghai who have disabled children, bring those children to SCH for treatment. We love working with SCH rehab staff because they are so intelligent and open to sharing ideas. It's a gift to travel half way across to world to work together and exchange ideas for the benefit of children. We brought them physical and speech therapy text books.

Then lunch came around. We had a soup with tofu, rice, mushrooms, a small whole fish, a type of turnip,and cabbage. Kathy did better with lunch than I did. Then they took us to a rest room for tea and coffee. After tea, we started evaluating the Gladney partnership children....boy, are they cute!

We evaluated 5 children today and overall, they seem to be in good shape. Some have very minor conditions and others more extensive, but they were all sweet, and loving, and beautiful. When we return to the U.S. we are going to host a webinar with more specifics about our trip and the children we are evaluating.

We were still seeing children at 4:00 when the buses were leaving, so our ex-expatriate interpreters kindly drove us back to the hotel. Tomorrow we are going to fostercare to see more Gladney partnership children.

They are giving us a reception on Friday night!

Stay tuned for more updates and hopefully some pictures!

Pat

Ethiopia Playroom Complete!

Kelly Did It!

We are so excited the playroom has been completed! Mostly. Angannette made some awesome rattles with our old water bottles by filling them part way with chick peas and gluing the bottle tops on which the kids LOVE. I really love creating things in Ethiopia with just what we can find, which actually is a lot (see Merkato post), but it’s important to have in mind what you need before you go. Cheap and easy toys that are easily re-made and safe for babies through older children who use them as musical instruments. We also had the chance to go through some storage areas and see some things that Kebeb Tsehay has but aren’t using because their old buildings are under renovation. We pulled out some toys and stuffed animals but wish we would have had a few more hard toys, too. We set up one of those alphabet foam floors and some foam Ethiopian mattresses, along with some blankets and quilts that people gave us to bring over to create nice, soft spaces for the kids to sit.

Before

As soon as we finished, our first toddler wandered out to test out the space. He LOVED it. Raphael was playing with the balls we blew up, throwing them, chasing them, sitting down rolling them with us. It was only the second time I had actually seen him laugh. The first was when he was playing with an electrical outlet (yes, we made him strop). The director of Kebeb Tsehay came upstairs to check things out and said she loved it. The last step is that needs to be completed is covering the bamboo weave from the inside with a plastic so the kids won’t put apart the weave (yes, they figured that out quickly) and since of course we ran out of time (how does that happen?! No matter how long you’re there- two months, two weeks, there is never enough time for it!), we left some money for Alex to head to the Merkato and we have no doubt he will take care of it.

Busy making things safe!

Complete!

Here are some before, middle and after pictures (yes, we’re home now, we can send pictures!). If I could create my dream playroom, it wouldn’t be on a second story balcony with wire railing, but that’s the name of the game; creating great spaces that are realistically usable for caregivers that will be continued once you leave. Otherwise, you’re wasting time, resources and it can be pretty disappointing to see what you worked hard to create go unused. I know Kebeb Tsehay has plans to create a new playroom in the old buildings but that still won’t be realistic for them to carry babies downstairs and into another building, so hopefully this can allow the children to get more stimulation during the day and encourage better motor and cognitive development.

Kelly

Kathy and Pat's first day in Shanghai

We are so excite to be in China! We got up at 7:30 yesterday to exercise and try to get on China time. After breakfast, we decided to go for a grand shopping adventure at the Yu gardens bazaar. We will definitely have overweight luggage for the return trip home. We shopped, shopped and shopped, along with talking picture after picture of the gardens.

(Kathy at Yu Gardens)

The Yu garden was first established in 1559 and was constructed over a period of 20 years. It was built by Pan En for his father who was a high ranking Chinese official ,in his old age. There are many areas of the garden that are exquisite, including a Rockery( a rock garden), Lotus pool and a beautiful bridge that has many turns. We were told this is because evil spirits could not turn corners. The gardens are beautiful and we were lucky enough to have been there when the Bonsai trees were in bloom. Kathy is an avid gardener and I love Asian gardens, so it was an amazing experience. It was a little rainy and foggy so it just added to the ambience of the garden.

We also had an afternoon pick me up at Starbucks. I had to take Kathy's picture several times as her son works in Starbucks. A man stopped us wanting to know why we came all the way to China only to take pictures of Starbucks. He laughed with us when we explained.

We are eagerly anticipating going to the orphanage tomorrow. Our ex-patriot translators will meet us at the orphanage at around 9:30. We are really eager to see them again. Kathy and I are going to spend the rest of the evening reviewing the profiles of waiting children.

I think we will sleep well tonight in-spite of our afternoon nap.

Bye for now.

Pat &Kathy

Words from Kathy

Kathy is off to Shanghai this Friday!

I am Kathy deMaCarty and I have been a Speech Therapist for almost 40 years. In my late twenties I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Manila, Philippines and I was stationed at The Southeast Asian Institute for the Deaf. I also taught Speech Pathology at the University of the Philippines. I still look back on that on it as one of the best times of my life.

I came away from that experience profoundly inspired and changed. I got so much more than I gave to the people I helped. I also came away from it with a greater understanding of culture and how it influences our belief system and our decision making.

I am thrilled to be going back to Shanghai Children’s Home. I was there 3 years ago but because of my knee I could not travel. Now armed with a new titanium knee, I feel that I can return. It was such a pleasure to share my knowledge with others who want to help the children in residence and those of the community.



I am coming to the end of my career, but I still want to travel, meet people of different cultures and the best way is to volunteer. Experience and adventure is high on my list of things that mean a lot to me and my ability to work with Superkids is a way to have both wonderful experiences and share some of my knowledge.

I am thrilled to be going back but I am not looking forward to that 15hour flight. At least I have an isle seat!

Update from Kelly in Ethiopia

Playroom: Stage One!

What a crazy day. I experienced depths of the Merkato like I did not know existed. I have a love-hate relationship with the Merkato, really. It's the biggest market in Africa which just seems awesome to have the opportunity to wander around and pretty much every trip is
always successful. If the item you are looking for exists in Africa, you can find it at the Merkato. That doesn't mean you will always find it quickly, although you are definitely always moving. Today's supply list included baskets (of various shapes and sizes), glue (crazy strong awesome glue that only comes in a way bigger container than we actually need), thin wire (an entire roll of it- also way more than needed but the price was right), clothes pins and seven woven bamboo
mats. You may wonder what one person would do with those random things, and in fact, most people wonder what I'm doing at the Merkato anyway. Well, I'm building a playroom, of course!

Kebebtsehay is in a bit of a transition period with the opening of the new building and the current remodeling of all the old. Apparently there are plans for a playroom that will be in a remodeled part of one the old buildings, but that still keeps things a little difficult because it's not really feasible for them to carry 40 kiddos down a flight of steps, outside and into another building for play time. The upstairs of the new building, however, is busting at the seams with
the recent influx of children (think 3x the number I dealt with in 2009), which leaves little extra space for a convenient playroom. Enter the balcony. I was told there was a "playground" already
upstairs. Great. Let's go check it out. Well, we were taken upstairs and walked out to a balcony which is barely accessible because currently a crib is blocking the door from opening more than 12 inches. This really is convenient because the door opens to the baby and toddler rooms, but there is a wire railing with intricate, and sharp, designs in the iron. So today began step one of a two to three step transformation from making this space into a beautiful, yet unusable place for children to be. We covered the railings with woven bamboo mats using thin wire. It actually turned out looking pretty nice and the director seems pleased! I took a few pictures of before and after step one but we all know how Ethiopian internet works so uploading isn't quite an option tonight. Hopefully soon before I'm back in the States!

Tomorrow is another big day...hopefully the final steps of completing the playroom complete with a safe floor (to cover the current hard ceramic tile) and baskets of toys, including rattles made with old water bottles, filled with chickpeas and glued closed. We're also excited to be putting the stander together and training Alex on how to use it and which kids are most appropriate that would benefit from the stander. We're continuing to work on the physical therapy binder that outlines appropriate positions for kiddos and different developmental
and therapeutic interventions that mainly Alex will be utilizing, but we are also making the second copy to leave for some of the nurses and caregivers to reference, too.

It's always nice to have some real, tangible goals in mind and see some progress towards them. Today Yemamu was talking about how he likes working in the orphanages themselves because you really get to see the fruits of your labor and today, that definitely felt real. Some days are easier than others, some more discouraging and some more joyful that you thought possible. We're grateful to see some of these things coming together and really feel like we're getting a good feel for what things may look like long-term. We LOVE doing what we do and having the opportunity to be there. Thanks for all the support!


Kelly

Project Play begins in Cali, Colombia!

ProjectPlay begins

24 02 2011 (check out Keely's blog and read about all her adventures in Colombia! Pretty soon, she will be on her way to Costa Rica http://superninos.wordpress.com/)

I think that I wrote a quick blurb about an idea that I had for Oscar Scarpetta: provide job/money management training to the adolescents at the same time we provide love/stimulation/play opportunities to enhance development for the little ones. How? you ask… well, this is the birth of ProjectPlay. The adolescents receive hourly payment into a group fund for providing the one-on-one play. The adolescents then get to spend this money on group outings, buying whatever they want for the group.

Thanks to the AMAZING support of donors for this program, we have been working really hard to get it underway the last few days.

I bought tons of toys, mats, climbing equipment for the kids to provide them a safe area to get to play. Play time/floor time in an orphanage is really like a war zone. It is a battle for survival– you either are the aggressor (the victor who keeps the toy and or gets the attention) or you are the weakling who sits in the corner and never makes a peep so no-one ever messes with you. We transformed this area into an AWESOME play space for kids from babies up to 8 or 9 years old.

The room before:

Pre- ProjectPlay

Bringin in the supplies:

Adolescents helping carry all the supplies to the room

The room after:

ProjectPlay playroom

The adolescents were informed of this opportunity a week and a half ago. They are learning the steps of employment: everyone had to fill out an application and undergo training before they are selected as a “leader of ProjectPlay”. They are learning ALL the ins-and-outs of the employee manual and the expectations of them as an employee. They spent almost 3 hours in a “class” about child development in which we talked about all the aspect of development and how they could enhance each (gross/fine motor, speech, cognition, behavior/social, creative etc) through play. We talked about using creativity and the millions of different ways you can use the same toys. Mostly I helped them understand how important the role of the the Leaders of ProjectPlay is to the success of the program.

ProjectPlay Leaders... so much learning, so little time

I asked them what the difference was between a street dog and a house dog. Their answers were right on– the street dog is wild, he could bite you, etc. The house dog listens to his master, he knows how to behave. I asked them what would be the difference if the “house dog” lived in the nicest house in the world but without an owner. And the “street dog” lived on the street with an owner who cared for him, fed him, talked to him and pet him etc. This stumped them for a minute. But after they all started discussing it, they realized that this “house dog” would be totally wild and the “street dog” would probably by clam and tamed. Then I talked about the new room– with all its toys, mats, bells and whistles. This is the beautiful house without an ownder– the big thing that will make a difference in the lives of these babies/young children is the people: the leaders of ProjectPlay. As Americans, we often hear the word play and automatically think of toys. But the truth is, a child with a rock and stick and a caring, engaging adult will learn WAY more than a child in FAO Schwartz with no interactions with other people. It was such a cool moment. All of them were smiling and nodding… like they even understood for themselves how important this connection would be. And they have been keeping up this awesome energy since.

Training day 2 consisted of reading the employee manual and discussing its content entirely and then making sure everyone knew how to fill out all the forms. One of the older girls commented about her shock in the amount of signatures that a job like this requires “I have to sign this paper too? can’t you guys just remember who I am?” The rest of the week will be observing play sessions. And then next week we start with the real deal.

ProjectPlay leaders (there are boys too.. they just were not here today)

I started introducing the play area to the little-ones today also. Talk about stimulation… this was totally overstimulation! All the newness. All the colors. All the toys that make noise and light up (because they actually have batteries) All the different feelings– of the squishy foam cushions. We spent the majority of the thirty minutes in a state of shock… them clutching onto me… me slowly working them into playing with a toy or two. One little boy however loved it. He was talking and making more noise than I have ever heard as he played with this light-up bus toy.

Lots of the kiddos looked like this the first 10 minutes:

Shock!

Followed by a little more confidence and a brief moment of play:

Boom Boom Boom... nothing like banging some rings together to really make a one year old happy

Holy cow… you mean I get to play with this thing for 20 minutes and no one is going to bother me:

He really liked this bus

Lots of the older girls (5-9 year olds) came in the room in the afternoon as we were cleaning up. They almost died. I think in a ten minute period they played with every single toy in the place.

The band

The ProjectPlay updates will definitely continue. We are starting this project as a 6 month trial and hopefully all will go well and we will see improvement on both fronts: development and job training/money management. But I think there is even more potential than that. I think great relationships will be formed between leaders and babies, leaders and supervisors, leaders and leaders. I hope that the leaders will have a sense of pride from participating. I hope that they will be role models for younger kids who want to participate in the program some day. I hope that they will be better more loving parents (eventually… please let this not happen for quite a while!). I hope this thing works!!

more soon

KO

Pat and Kathy leave for China this Friday!

Hi everyone,

Let me introduce ourselves. My name is Pat, I am a pediatric physical therapist who has praticed for over 25 years. Kathy is a speech therapist who has praticed for about 40 years. We are part of superkids which is the humanitarian aide arm of Gladney adoption agency.

Pat, physical therapist

Kathy, speech therapist

Kathy and I are preparing to leave for Shanghai this Friday and we are so excited. We will spend the week at the Shanghai Children's Home. Our mission is to meet children in the Waiting Children Program and to train orphanage staff, local volunteers, and caregivers who care for disabled orphans. We have been preparing for this trip since last fall. All our preparation is about to come to fruition. We are fluttering around trying to pull our lives together and take care of a multitude of last minute details. My suitcase is almost as tall as I am. This is my fourth trip and Kathy's second trip.We are excited and nervous at the same time. Did we forget anything? Most of all we can't wait to get back to see the Children in the orphanage. We know we will see familiar staff and care givers. Several expatriate volunteers, who we have worked with during previous missions, will interpret for us again. We met them on one of our first trips to China and we can't wait to see them! Their ability to translate is great and their command of not only proper language but also common language is exceptional. They seem to actually think in two languages.

Kathy and I are meeting for breakfast tomorrow to go over last minute details. We will keep you all in the loop as to whats going on.

Even the longest Journey begins with one small step.