HengShan County Social Welfare Institute
Day 1:
Upon arrival in Changsha (the capital city of Hunan Province), you will be met in the arrival areas by your local guide holding a flag of "Lead to China". After a warm welcome and brief introduction, take a private transfer to your hotel for assistance with check-in.
Day 2:
You will be picked up at the hotel lobby and transferred to Hengshan County SWI (about 2.0 hours). Your orphanage visitation typically includes a meeting with the orphanage director and staff, see Children's playroom and the files, the institute will send you some souvenirs. You will have a lunch with them. Then take you to finding site of your child. Finally, transfer you to your hotel.
Day 3:
Transfer you to Changsha.Today you will have one day tour of Changsha. The recommended scenic spots are Yuelu Academy, Hunan Embroidery Museum and Orange Island. Or you can arrange your private activities this day.
Day 4:
You will be transferred to airport or railway station to leave. Tour ends here.
Prior to your orphanage visit application submission, please make sure you have the following documents ready:
A copy of each visitor's passports
A copy of the adoption certificate or the notarized adoption documents
An orphanage visit application letter
We all know that it is important to return to China. Apart from visiting the orphanage, children may focus more on traveling itself. Therefore, if adoptive families want to explore more tourist cities in China, please feel free to tell us. And we will customize a heritage tour of lifetime for you.
HengShan County Social Welfare Institute:
Address:No.56, Nanyue Beizheng Street, Hengshan county.
General Information: It was founded in 1980 and is located in the village of Jiaotong.
It covers an area of 240 hectares.
Give children and elderly home. It is estimated that there are about 32 children and 35 staff members (2 physicians, 16 carers, 4 nurses and 1 coach of rehabilitation).
In early 2007 the orphanage began a program for children would be in foster care (thanks to FTIA). Most of the support for this program comes from the adoptive parents.
International adoptions in this orphanage began around 2002.
Until 2005 it has about 502 children in adoption.
Andeni has worked with the orphanage through donations.
The Alliance For Children Foundation has also collaborated.
To visit this SWI, you can take flight to Changsha first and then we can drive you to Hengshan. The driving time will be 2 hours. Or you also can take fast train to Hengshan and it will only take 30 mins.
For the hotels in Hengshan, most them are the 3star class.
Depending on the size of the SWI and how often visitors return, a visit could can be a highly anticipated event by the staff, or a routine, minor inconvenience to the day to day running of the institution.
You will want to discuss this aspect of reality with your child and prepare her or him for what it might be like, based on what you know. It is good to talk to your child about what to expect and then what to do if things turn out differently than you expect. It is important to develop an attitude of flexibility and focus on enjoying the experience rather than to get set on things going a certain way, since things don’t always go exactly as planned on any trip or daily life experience. A small gift is always appropriate for the effort expended by the director and or staff to accommodate the visiting family.
Since it may be several years after an adoption, it’s not unusual that the orphanage moved to a new place. Remember it’s normal, natural, time will not stand still, just as your children changed dramatically from she/he was a baby when just there.
If you are interested in visit both of the orphanages, we are happy to facilitate it, you can follow the previous footprint to recall your excitement when you look at your children at first time.
We usually arrange visiting the finding site for families if have the Notarial Certificate of the finding place. The finding site usually is at the front of hospital/orphanage/government agencies, etc. Please note that there places may be changed also.
Since visiting the finding site is the most emotional part of the trip, it’s a personal decision for each family and only you can make the decision if you want to accomplish it.
We always arrange the meeting with the previous caregiver/ foster family. If you have the information of the previous caregiver, we will try our best to find her. Please do remember that it’ll be some years after your adoption, the caregiver may be moved away or be retired. If the caregiver is still working in the orphanage, the director will happy to facilitate the connection.
Also please note that the caregiver may take care of more than one hundred babies in the orphanage, so that she may not remember your child well.
If your family is interested or inclined to invite the orphanage director to lunch, it is proper to invite others in the meeting as well. This would usually be one or two of the directors' assistants. If you want to invite the caregiver or nanny, then you should extend that invitation through the director to show the proper respect that the position merits. Your guide will handle this for you, but inviting the staff through the director follows proper etiquette for the situation. Some of the orphanages offer the free lunch while the others request about USD90-USD150 for the extra charge. You may ask our trip consultant before you travel.
When visiting an orphanage, it is appropriate to prepare some gifts for the director/staff and the children. You can invite the director, the staff or the caregiver to have lunch together or prepare fruit basket for them, for their effort expended to accommodate the visiting family.
As for the gifts to kids, you can prepare some snacks, candy, books, school backpacks, toys and so on. Usually, you can buy them when arrival at the orphanage place, the guide can escort you.
If you want to donate something more valuable and not sure what is needed for the orphanage, you can first learn it from the director and then purchase them from the local market. Some SWI will issue a donation certificate to you but not every SWI will do this.
With years of experience working with children in orphanages all over China, Lead to China is uniquely qualified to offer a special homeland experience for you. You will:
- Visit the orphanage, foster family and finding site
- Learn about birth country culture
- Get the first hand price from local agency