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Children from the Shepherds Field Children's Village pose for a group photo with all the people who love them in front of original calendar prints from charity fundraisers during the last six years at the Red Gate Gallery in China's 798 art district in Beijing on November 22, 2008. [CRI]
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A contemporary printmaking exhibition called "Living Space" opened in Beijing on Saturday. The annual art exhibition provides funding support for the Shepherds Field Children's Village, an orphanage in Beijing suburbs, also home to abandoned children who suffer from serious diseases all over China. Our reporter Yang Yang brings you more.
"Which one do you like? Oh, this one. I like this. What is this? "
"Birds' Nest."
"Yeah, you are right."
This is a conversation between a ten-year-old orphan Zhu Fengfei and Timothy Baker, founder of the Philip Hayden Foundation, an American non-profitable NGO established in 1995 for the purpose of helping China's orphaned and special needs children.
The Philip Hayden Foundation was set up in honor of an American teacher and volunteer Philip Hayden, who earlier died unexpectedly at a younger age of 28 as a result of a rare heart defect while on a voluntary trip to northeast China with Timothy Baker. Since that time, the foundation has been working as a "China orphan outreach" by setting up children's villages around China for at-risk and special-needs orphans. It not only provides children with medical assistances but also works to find families to adopt them.
About 95 percent of the orphans the foundation now takes care were abandoned children born with defects or disabilities.
Zhu Fengfei is one of these kids at the Shepherds Field Children's Village. He started a new life after a critical heart surgery in June 20th, 2007.
Baker and other volunteers from the team of his foundation are bringing Zhu to the Red Gate Gallery at 798, a famous art district in northeastern Beijing on a Saturday afternoon for the opening of the "Living Space" exhibition. This annual art event is a charity fundraiser for the children at the Shepherds Field Children's Village.
Seven Chinese artists have provided 50 original prints to be sold as calendars for 4,888.00 yuan, or about US$720 each. Those who purchase the calendars can retain the works as they are or mount them as distinctive stand-alone pieces.
