Half the Sky Foundation

THE HEART PROJECT
Share your love and save a life!

Both Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year Day (the Year of the Tiger) fall on the very same day this year. Join Half the Sky in commemorating this happy coincidence as we launch The Heart Project — a special fund to save some very special lives.

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is now the most common cause of birth defects and the leading cause of infant death in China. In our Beijing China Care Home, over half of the 70 tiny CCH residents suffer from a complex heart defect. And every now and then the problem is so severe that it will require multiple or extremely demanding procedures to save the child's life. Because they don't have a family to fight for them, and because the medical costs to save them are extraordinarily high, most of these babies are turned away from both government and private charity heart programs. Most of them do not survive.

That is why we've launched The Heart Project. If you'd like to help save a life, please click on DONATE NOW and, at the bottom of your donation form (Gift Designation), note that your gift is for "THE HEART PROJECT."

You can read about our first little beneficiary right here.

WHAT'S HAPPENING AT HALF THE SKY —
February 2010 -
Chinese New Year / Valentine's Day / The Heart Project
March 2010 -
March 4 - Community Celebration - Beijing
1st National Symposium on Integration of HTS Programs into Daily Life - Nanjing
April 2010 -
Community Celebration - New York
May 2010 -
New Site Build & Training (Annual Volunteer Build) / Xiamen; Changchun; Datong
About joining a Half the Sky Work Crew in China
May 22 - Community Celebration & Gala - Hong Kong
Blue Sky Training - Xi'an; Zhengzhou
June 2010 -
Community Celebrations - Chicago & Vancouver
Blue Sky Trainiing - Wuhan
August 2010
Blue Sky Training - Guiyang; Harbin; Urumqi
September 2010
New Site Build & Training - Shijiazhuang; TBD
November 2010
Community Celebration - San Francisco
Blue Sky Training - Qingdao; Shenyang

And...
By the end of 2010, we will have 18 HTS Blue Sky Model Centers, 27 HTS Children's Centers, and be helping orphaned children in 45 cities across China know what it feels like to be loved.

CAREER AND VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES AT HTS

Thank You (January 29, 2010)

Last day to vote for Half the Sky! (January 22, 2010)

On my mind…. (January 19, 2010)

The Heart Project - Ting's Story

Last year, a little girl was found by the side of a road in Inner Mongolia. Summer had almost arrived, but after the long, cold winter, the girl’s birth parents had wrapped her carefully in a warm blanket to protect her. Inside that blanket, also painstakingly wrapped, was a plaintive note: “Please save our poor child. We are too poor to afford the cost of surgery.”

The police arrived quickly and took the tiny baby to the orphanage in Baotou, where her caregivers estimated her age to be only two days old and gave her the name ''Ting' (Graceful). Orphanage officials soon realized that they too were unable to provide the care that Ting needed. Ting’s heart condition seemed far too complex to be handled locally.

So the Baotou orphanage director asked HTS to accept her at our new China Care Home in Beijing where some of the best heart surgeons in China might be able to help. Ting arrived at the China Care Home last July, a month old and weighing only 2.7 kg (just under six pounds).

After extensive evaluation, Ting was diagnosed with pulmonary stenosis, (a defective pulmonary valve that doesn’t open properly), severe pulmonary hypertension, and a rare double outlet right ventricle defect in which both of the great arteries of the heart (the aorta and the pulmonary artery) are connected to the right ventricle instead of separate ventricles.

Ting, who has been hospitalized several times with pneumonia, is still too little to endure the challenging surgery that will save her life. The cardiac surgeon says she must weigh at least 10kg (22 lbs)

But Ting is too frail to return to Baotou to wait. So her ever-watchful nannies at the China Care Home are determined to make her plump and ready. With their efforts, we estimate that Ting will be strong enough for surgery before summer.

That gives us a few months to raise the US $25,000-30,000 it will cost to save Ting's life. It seems a small price to pay for the life of one precious child.

You can contribute to The Heart Project here.