Posted by Rachel Johnson on
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Website: http://www.thestarfishfosterhome.org/index.aspx
China Contact Information
Starfish Foster Home
Attn: Amanda de Lange
Maple Leaf New City, Area C, Block B-502
Ke Ji Road, Gao Xin
Xian 710075
CHINA
86.29.88044168 (Cell);
86.29.88390648 (Home)
chinese.starfishthrower@gmail.com
Tuesday morning, we had the privilege to have Amanda de
Lange, founder of Starfish Foster Home, give us a talk on non-profit work in
China.
Amanda’s story for being in this line of work seems to be
similar to many people who saw others in suffering and decided to do something
about it – not generally a particularly clearly thought out plan initially –
and took it upon themselves to make something happen. Amanda takes in babies
with special needs who would otherwise likely die in the orphanages that they
had been living in due to their special requirements. These babies can range
from having problems like cleft palate, spina bifida, hemangioma, or congenital
heart defects. All of these are treatable, but many parents in rural China don’t
know where to go to help their child, or don’t have the money with which to do
so, and so they are abandoned.
To illustrate the severity of the problem: children born
with cleft palate in the United States (which happens at a much lower rate than
in China, probably due to maternal malnourishment in the developing world) will
have surgery to fix the deformity and will live the rest of their lives with a
scar, but little else will be different for them. If a cleft palate baby goes
to an orphanage here, the mortality rate is around 80%, according to Amanda,
based upon the lack of available care to make sure that the baby gets the food
they need to grow.
Any non-profit faces problems working in China. For one,
it is very difficult for NGOs to enter or work in China, and Amanda said that
none have been approved to work in China for the past ten years. For another,
the legal framework doesn’t exist as it does in other countries to reward
donors for giving to a charity, and the charity has problems setting up as a
not-for-profit entity. For that reason, Starfish Foster Home is set up as a
501(c)(3) non-profit in the U.S., rather than in China.
Some of the management problems that Amanda faces are due
to Chinese culture, and some are due to her own managerial style. She has faced
numerous problems with her staff not being able to anticipate problems, or
respond sluggishly when there is a serious problem, such as a stove broken for
two days, meaning no warm milk for the babies. She also works way too many
hours in the day, because she doesn’t have a capable administrative staff to
take some of the load off of her shoulders. In addition, Amanda’s style is
passionate – not business process oriented. Her love for her babies is more
than apparent, but she admitted herself that she has flown by the seat of her
pants for the past five years and more or less has approached her growth and
non-profit business development in a very ad hoc way. If she had more specific
and detailed processes for her staff to follow when inventory was low, something
was broken, even in the form of a decision tree, she wouldn’t have to spend
nearly as much time thinking for them, and could spend more of her time on
fundraising and networking with the people who can help the children most.
Some of the organizations and people Amanda has worked
with:
Smile Train
Operation Smile
Lisa Buckmiller (University of Arkansas Children’s
Medical Center)
One of the things I found most admirable about Amanda is
that even in the face of serious adversity, such as her rooms being torn down
and needing to find new lodging for her nannies and her babies, and in the face
of an uncertain future for her foster home based on the political climate in
China, she still is passionate and giving of herself and has spent her life
savings on this project, even when it probably would have seemed prudent to
leave the work to someone else. I deeply respect and admire anyone who can take
their reaction to the pain and suffering of others and build something to
respond to that need. It is unknown to me how many babies Amanda has saved
through her work, but even one baby would have made her effort worth it.