Projects
Founded in 2003, Bethel’s largest project is in Beijing’s Fangshan District. This project is now a family preservation center, focusing on empowering families and preventing children from becoming orphans. With a preschool available to children who need early intervention most, this site focuses mainly on infants, preschoolers and school-age children and setting the foundations for them to grow into independent adults.
We not only provide scholarships to blind children to attend our preschool, we also host trainings and camps for families who are struggling to raise their visually impaired child. As far as we are aware we are the only preschool in China who welcomes children with multiple disabilities.
Our teachers go through an extensive training process in Bethel's unique educational model. The Fangshan center provides orientation and mobility classes that train the children in AMD (Alternative Mobility Device) and how to use a cane to navigate. Additionally, children can learn braille and learn in touch-and-feel classrooms.
Fangshan
Located in the most populated province in China, the Zhengzhou orphanage is one of the largest orphanages with hundreds of children under their care. Bethel’s Zhengzhou site was first piloted in 2011 and is a direct collaboration with the Zhengzhou Children's Welfare Institute. Since then, the program has expanded to 3 classrooms within the orphanage and 2 homes on-site where the VI children stay with a foster family at night. Most of the magic happens in the school, where our trained teachers implement Bethel’s educational model.
There are currently about 35 students in this project that are making incredible progress that was previously thought impossible by the CWI. Opening a center within a state run CWI has not only allowed us to access more children in need, but also influence the quality of care within the orphanage by serving as role models of what these children can achieve with love, care and education.
Zhengzhou
Jiaozuo
Bethel established a center within the Jiaozuo Children's Welfare Institute in 2016 with the support of the Asociación de Familias Adoptantes en China (AFAC). With AFAC's sponsorship, we are currently educating and caring for 11 VI children in the CWI in a Bethel classroom.
All of the teachers in our satellite projects are first trained in Bethel's educational model in our Fangshan center before establishing their own classrooms. In the Jiaozuo preschool, our teachers use proven strategies to work with students on overcoming motor and language delays, including teaching sign language and message therapy. Most importantly, Bethel staff pour love into these children. Their progress and amazing transformations have been based on the trust the children place in their caregivers.
Nanjing
Founded in 2016, Bethel's Nanjing center is a collaboration with the Nanjing Children's Welfare Institute to provide early intervention and preschool for blind and VI children within the orphanage. Bethel currently has one classroom with 10 children, who attend our classroom during the day and return to the care of the CWI at night.
Bethel's teachers in Nanjing not only implement Bethel’s successful early intervention techniques, but also are our most creative teachers. The teachers often make their own teaching materials using arts and crafts supplies, such as hand-made touch-and-feel books made out of felt.
Our Nanjing teachers are also trained in massage therapy and give our children daily massages to help them build strength in their legs and overcome their mobility issues. They have enhanced Bethel’s training by infusing their own personal creativity into the curriculum.
Outreach
Founded in 2010, the Outreach program provides families with the necessary trainings and resources necessary to stay together and improve the quality of care and educational opportunities for blind and visually impaired children across China.
Bethel hosts several trainings throughout the year for families across China, providing families with the knowledge and resources they need to lower the chance of abandonment. We also regularly publish training materials including our educational manual and DVD series and live stream trainings with members of Bethel's education team and other experts.
We also train staff from different orphanages in China through the outreach program. We help orphanage caregivers see the potential of blind and visually impaired children to be independent while teaching them different aspects of Bethel's early intervention techniques. By sharing our expertise we are able to improve the quality of care within orphanages for blind and visually impaired children.
Shang Rao
Located in Jiang Xi province, the Shang Rao center is located within the Shang Rao city CWI. Founded in 2021, the program has 3 classrooms within the orphanage. The three classrooms offer education for three different age groups, teenagers/young adults, elementary age and preschool age. The project is unique because Bethel offers education to any orphan with disabilities, not just those with visual impairments.
There are currently about 50 students in this project that are making incredible progress. We feel truly grateful to be able to bring education and the opportunity to live an independent life to these orphans.
