Kites Without Strings
Fang Lee, our summer intern in China, spent some time visiting the children and the director at the Shantou Social Welfare Institute.
Fang met with the Director Yao for about an hour to discuss older kids. When telling us about that meeting, she gave the following analogy, which really resonated with us considering the recent launch of the Life Skills/Community Bridging program.
Fang wrote: Director Yao is such a lovely woman! Very open and cares about the kids a great deal. She had a really insightful and beautiful metaphor about older kids:
Older children who grow up in an orphanage are like kites without strings.
Most kids are like kites who have strings. They have a reference point called a “family” which keeps them anchored. These [older] kids grow up in the orphanage and they have no idea how to deal with familial interpersonal relationships and they don’t know where their starting point is, just like kites without a string.
As we work towards launching our Life Skills/Community Bridging program, these words will help to guide us and remind us why this new initiative is so important.
Please stay tuned for more information to come about this exciting new venture!
