The Orphan Crisis Worldwide

"Each life/family changing surgery will cost between $1200-$15,000 US" This will be depenant of the type of surgery the child needs. The surgeries range from simple cleft lip to intensive heart surgery. Every dollar helps transform and life and family."

* 150 million orphans worldwide.
*Each year only 250,000 children find adoptive families.

Every day more than 38,000 orphans around the world grow into adulthood in orphanages. This is no longer just a problem, this is a crisis.

We can no longer turn our backs or wait for our government to help.
We all can do something now to save a life and prevent another child from becoming an orphan.

The Core Issue: Parents Without Hope

Studies have found that indigent parents living near orphanages are likely to abandon their sick children. As the health of their child declines, the only solution, in the minds of these poor parents, is to leave the child in the hands of the orphanage, hoping the facility will have the funds to give their child much-needed medical care.

It is of paramount importance for all of us to understand why this happens, why parents abandon their children. It is an act of desperation and love, rather than a callous decision by uncaring parents. The surgeries these children require vary; some need just one operation to fix a fairly basic problem, and some require long-term medical care. Sadly, even children needing one operation are abandoned to orphanages, and if lucky, receive the surgery, but most likely will not be reclaimed by their birth parents. Neither are they adopted in most cases.

Saving Lives and Saving Families: Where You Come In

Our plan is to assist mothers and fathers in their quest to obtain, often times, life-saving surgical procedures for their children. We give renewed parents hope in saving their child’s life.

How does it work? One simple way is assessing how much funding a family still needs to afford adequate medical treatment for their child. The families typically fill out a form listing their assets. Usually these assets include a mud-brick house containing a heated platform bed called a "kang," a television set, basic furniture and a motorcycle they often share with one or two other families.Saving Levi Charities partners with the local governments to locate the most needy children and families. Based on this assessment, the at-risk families are asked to pay what they can reasonably afford as a percentage of their child¹s medical costs. We help by funding the remaining costs.

The result? Together we save a child's life and a family!

Chinese parents are just like you and me: they love their kids very much and want to be able to raise them in a loving home environment with the hope they grow up to be productive members of society. And because China has no social security network for peasant farmers, children are even more important as they often are the only available caregivers for elderly parents.

Our mission is to reduce the number of orphans in China by:

· providing needed surgeries
· health education
· pre-natal and medical support