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Dental Clinic at Chong Ye Primary School 崇业小学
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Students Receive Dental Check-ups, Books, and Toys at Chong Ye School
You can see more pictures by clicking on the photos.
 | | Kids line up for the dental clinic |
 | Doctor and volunteers
demonstrate proper brushing. |
Three Mai sisters made this whole day possible and handled the details. Xiaoyuan Mai, a doctor at the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Hospital in Nanning, encouraged her co-workers to bring their expertise and arranged the Chong Ye Primary School Dental Clinic.
Xiaomin Mai, one of our board members, helped raise money at a USA yard sale for toothbrushes and paste for all the students. Xiaoling Mai, vice-principal of Ming Yi Primary School in Nanning, arranged a book donation drive at her school which gave over 1000 books to the rural Yao minority school. Blessing Hands gave four metal bookcases, so each classroom could protect the books. We also took them a water purifier.
The Chong Ye kids were very excited to see all the books, visitors, gifts and candy. Volunteers were glad to help the kids, eat lunch at the school, and see the countryside homes and culture.
The road to the school was narrow, under construction, and bumpy. One car carrying books had a flat tire, but at least it was not in a muddy place.
 | Kids got to choose a gift
after their check-up. |
 | | Principal Lan Kegang 蓝克刚 (far left) accepted the books donated by Min Yi School. |
 | Kids will soon be able to have
safe drinking water. |
 | Blessing Hands gave
the school a water purifier. |
Chong Ye Primary School
崇业小学
will soon have a Blessing Hands water purifier installed. The water presently comes from a cistern since wells can't be dug in the limestone karst. The kids drink from one faucet with no thought of boiling water.
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Xiaomin Mai translated during the TV interview.
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The road was bumpy, narrow and long.
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This five-year-old boy
is mute like his mother.
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Yao Families
Some of our group hiked up to visit two of the Yao families that Blessing Hands is sponsoring. The traditional Yao house is at least two stories with the bottom being the barn for the animals. The rafters hold storage and sometimes drying crops. Corn planted by hand is the main cash crop.
With a sponsor's help, this boy will be sent to a doctor in Nanning to see why he is mute. Most of his family of five is handicapped in some way, but his older sister is a good student in middle school. She walks miles to school everyday.
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The houses are open to the weather, so they sleep with mosquito nets.
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Older Yao homes often have concrete additions with flat roofs to gather rainwater. Migrant workers send money home to build the more modern homes. The homes are high in karst mountains where water is precious.
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The hospitality of the families was shown by their gifts of corn, soybeans, and three live chickens to their Blessing Hands guests. The driver took the chicken to the market to be dressed, and we ate them the next day for lunch. It was a little hard for our group to eat chickens they knew, but they were delicious.
 | | Steps to the main floor were made out of logs. |
 | | Eric, son of volunteer Shanli Zhao, with the gift chickens. |
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Sharing the path with a herd of goats
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New Opportunities - New Students
In summer, we went all the way from Zhuhai to Kunming helping students and engaging volunteers. We have begun a new children's programs in Zhuhai City, among the Miao minority people, and at Shenfu Primary School in Quanzhou County near Guilin. Yangshuo County is also selecting thirty-five new students for sponsorship.
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Huizhong Wang with his father Lao Wang help us among the Miao.
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These are opportunities for you to sponsor a child for a longer time period since you can follow them as they grow up. Beginning in the fall semester, these new programs will start small and increase as the students grow. Contact us if you want to sponsor a child. Each program has different costs.
Sponsor New Students
 Give $57 a semester for a Miao student.
Give $65 a semester for a Zhuhai student.
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 | | Kids Singing |
深福小学 Shenfu Primary School Sponsorships
Shao and Jing, her husband, are our volunteers for Shenfu Primary School in Jing's hometown. We have enrolled 11 new students there, who need sponsors. You can see the story of our visit on our Pinterest pages.
 | | 真龙 Zhenlong can be sponsored for $84 (510 yuan) a year |
This school is in the Guilin Prefecture of Guangxi Province. The teacher and kids walked an hour and a half to meet us at a larger school. Because the kids are from the same village, Jing and Shao think they can follow them as they grow into higher grades. Most of the kids have the same family name. This is an opportunity to sponsor a student from first grade on up. When sponsorship starts this early, students raise their dreams and have more open doors available to them. You can see more photos of students and pick one out to sponsor on our
 | | 家家Jiajia needs a sponsor. |
 | | 涛Tao needs a sponsor. |
 | | 启明Qiming and other students can be sponsored for $42 a semester or $84 a year. |
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Wheelchair Dedication
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Dedication of 109 Wheelchairs
Our volunteers got to see some of the people who they helped to receive wheelchairs. I enjoyed talking personally to each one of them. We partnered with the Wheelchair Foundation to provide the chairs made in China for $90 each. The chairs even had our logo on the back.
There were two different kinds of red chairs. One was a tricycle that could be used outside for travel and the other was for general use. I especially noticed one clever man, who had altered his old tricycle to have a windshield and covered top. When the dedication ceremony was cut short by rain, he scrambled to get his new wheelchair hooked up to his old one. Click on photos to see the whole story.
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Tricycle type wheelchair
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This man used wooden blocks
to protect his hands.
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With his new tricycle chair in
tow, he took off.
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Members of Lexington Chinese Christian Church gave fifty of these wheelchairs. The Handicapped Bureau of Du'an County helped plan the ceremony and arranged for the delivery of the chairs.
Our many Blessing Hands volunteers made the day unforgettable. 马榕蔓 Mandy Ma, our volunteer administrator in Du'an, used her skills to coordinate everything.
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Our wheelchairs in the disabled classroom
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Du'an Handicapped School
We also toured Du'an County
Handicapped School, which is the biggest in Hechi Prefecture. The three year old school teaches 100 blind, deaf, disabled, and mentally challenged students until they graduate from ninth grade.
We suggested to the principal that they should have computers to teach the students vocational skills.
If you know of a donor, foundation, or international company willing to fund such a computer project,
They need to have new com
puters in every appropriate classroom as well as a lab to teach computer skills.
 | | Students' dorm at the school |
 | | These disabled kids could learn computer vocational skills. |
 | We gave small gifts and
candy to the students. |
 | | The students were learning Braille. |
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 | Xu Zongjie (Mike) plans
to study Engineering |
College Scholarships
We have new students seeking college scholarships. Some already have sponsors from high school, but need extra from a second sponsor. 徐 宗杰 Xu Zongjie has been accepted by Qinzhou University School of Electronic Information Engineering. His tuition is 4590 yuan a year. We hope sponsors will work together to give him a 4000 Yuan ($650) scholarship. Please help him.
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