FCC club lunch with Jenny BOWEN

Speaker: Jenny BOWEN
Founder & CEO, Half the Sky
Topic: China’s orphans today

How many children are still in China’s orphanages? What’s changed in recent years? How is the trafficking situation?

The Chinese government estimates it has 583,000 orphans with about 57,000 living in 290 children’s welfare institutions. Recently they unofficially raised the orphan number to 770,000, but many more children languish in social welfare institutions (homes for elderly, the mentally ill, etc.) And there are uncounted numbers of street children and children informally adopted on farms. UNICEF pegs the orphan number in the millions.

Since Ms. BOWEN started the Half The Sky Foundation in 1998, the Foundation has established numerous children’s centers in Chinese government-operated orphanages. 6,000 orphans are enrolled in Half the Sky programs, with 40,000 children having participated in its programmes. Ms. BOWEN will explain Half the Sky’s work and how it’s helping to bring about long-term change to the child welfare system. She has spent 12 years caring for orphans in China and has a first hand view of the challenges.