After a long delay, things appear to be moving forward again at the Hengdong SWI. In early August there was news that the plan to build the new orphanage building would finally go forward, a new four-story structure that would replace the current crumbling facility. A permanent director of the orphanage had not yet been named by the provincial Hunan Civil Affairs Bureau, but a temporary director was reported to be ably handling the orphanage's daily affairs in the meantime. Indeed this person is said to be Xiang Zhen Xin, a seemingly competent young man who was the orphanage's secretary, a sort of third-in-charge position, at the time of my visit there.
Over the past summer many adoptive parents with children from the Hengdong SWI wrote to the district court of appeals in central Hunan province, to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, or to offices of the Chinese government, on behalf of former Hengdong SWI Director Chen Ming who had been sentenced to a year in prison for his alleged role in the Hunan baby trafficking case. The case is complex but there seems to be evidence that in Hengdong officials were trying to act in the best interests of abandoned children. In other words, they basically appear to have accepted children at the orphanage who might otherwise have been left to find homes through an unregulated black market. But Chinese news agencies are no longer reporting on this case and there has been no other news about Chen Ming through unofficial channels. Among our adoptive families he is remembered as a kind and gracious man and is believed to be a tragic figure in the baby trafficking trials.
Wherever he is and whatever fate may have befallen him, I hope that Chen Ming can find some comfort in the good aspects of the work he was able to accomplish at the orphanage. For in a relative short period of a few years he was able to secure families for hundreds of abandoned children including more then 250 children now living in more than a half dozen countries outside China across the globe. Each adoption requirred considerable initiative on his part, as did the plan for the new orphanage building that is now finally bearing fruit.
On the other hand, if the orphanage plan has been used in any way as a ruse to hide the siphoning off of orphange revenue that could otherwise have helped these children or if the children were in anyway used for profit then we must hope that fate serves justice to everyone involved.
It appears that, for now, the Hengdong SWI is no longer able to place children in foreign adoptions.
This week our parent-supported Hengdong Charity Fund received a request from the orphanage for $8,490 USD to fund the construction of two activity rooms in the new building. The money would cover a mix of basic structural and equipment costs for the rooms. The structural items would include windows, window safety bars, paint, and wood flooring. Among the equipment furnished would be wall padding, air conditioning/heating units, toys, and two television sets for children's programming.
