When Robin Hill and his wife, Dr. Joyce Hill, came to China 16 years ago, they had no idea they’d stay on so long. “We were living in Lido, working as expats,” explains Robin. “Around the time we were getting ready to leave China, we felt called to take sick children into our home.” The pair retired and established a home for children in southern Beijing. Seven years ago, they moved to Shunyi District, where they built a place big enough to house 12 babies (now 56), and the Hope Healing Home was started.
The New Hope Foundation, of which the Hope Healing Home is a part, has a three-pronged focus. First, explains Robin, “We take babies under 6 months old who have physical problems we can fix: heart problems, club feet, spinal bifida and cleft palates are typical cases we take. We get them medical treatment, and then we encourage their orphanage directors to put these babies up for adoption.” The New Hope Foundation also runs several Special Care Units in Henan province (in Jiaozuo, Xinyang and the new facility in Luoyang), to offer palliative or hospice care. “We take babies who have been diagnosed as terminal or severely disabled. About 60 percent of these babies do eventually die, but we save many, and we bring some of them to Beijing for treatment,” says Robin. The recently opened Luoyang facility is expected to house 150 people. Finally, the Hills run an “18-bed step-up step-down unit” out of the Shunyi home, in collaboration with another organization, Love Without Boundaries. Robin says, “They find kids who are too weak to undergo treatment. We bring them to Beijing and basically fatten them up until they’re ready for surgery. Love Without Boundaries facilitates the surgery, and then the babies come back to us until they are strong enough to return to their orphanages.”
The New Hope Foundation is in need of long- term volunteers with medical backgrounds, as they are constantly called upon to evaluate the needs of each individual baby. “We also need long term volunteers who are able to assist in our kindergarten,” says Robin, “and we need people to come in the mornings just to play with the babies while they’re awake and expose them to different people.” In addition, the New Hope Foundation has a list of needed supplies on their website (www.hopefosterhome.com/needs.htm). The wish list includes double strollers and hand sanitizer, which are hard to find in Beijing, as well as diapers and wipes, which can be quite expensive.
New Hope Foundation
97 Zhongxin Jie
Guojiawu Village
Beiwu Township, Shunyi District
www.hopefosterhome.com
info@hopefosterhome.com
Robin Hill
robin@hopefosterhome.com
138 0135 1444
