In China, Star of Hope focuses in the areas of children with special needs, providing support for school construction and school support to orphans or children from poor families. The desired outcome of this work is primarily geared to improve the living situations of / and be part of changing attitudes toward children with special needs.
It is estimated that there are 9.5 million children in China with special needs, but the unreported cases are said to be larger. Eighty percent of these children live in rural areas. There is little support from the Chinese government for these children and their parents.
Star of Hope seeks to assist and give these children a better start in life by including support for training of staff and parents of children with special needs. We also provide material support to several orphanages in the form of equipped play rooms, renovation of sanitary facilities, dormitories, heating and more.
Star of Hope also provides regular educational support to orphans and children in villages with minority populations. In some villages, Star of Hope support has led to the local municipality involving themselves in the situation of children from minority groups. This, in turn, has led to more new schools being built in needed areas.
Star of Hope began its work in China in connection with the severe floods of 1998, when 240 million people lost their homes and belongings. Star of Hope went in with several disaster responses. In cooperation with the organization All China Charity Foundation, emergency supplies, clean water and medicine was handed out to tens of thousands of affected people. Since then, Star of Hope in China has built schools, paid for surgery for more than 100 children with cleft palate and worked to improve the living conditions of orphans and children with special needs living in institutions.
