When I am at the special needs orphanage supported by Global Partners in Life, I am constantly amazed by how the children entertain themselves. On one occasion we gave the children some bikes, and that entertained them for hours. The other end of the spectrum is how I have seen the children find a bug and be fascinated with it.
My conclusion is that it requires so little on our part to entertain the children, and I am thankful for that, because there isn’t a creative bone in my body. It is easy for me to go to a local store and buy the children some different colored packages of playdough. Once I give the playdough to the children, their creativity is displayed. Playdough is something that I can give the children and it will entertain them for hours. Check out the artwork from playdough below!
A creative team I took to China with me had some wonderful ideas. Did you know that with a string and some Fruit Loops, you can make a colorful necklace? This is a win, win, win, win situation for the children because they were entertained, enjoyed making the necklaces, enjoyed wearing the necklaces, and enjoyed eating them! In the picture below, you can see that she enjoyed eating more of her Fruit Loops than she put on her necklace.
This same team had another creative idea for playing with the children. What do you get with a cardboard box, a little paint, a marble, and a sheet of paper? ART! If you put a piece of paper in the bottom of a box, and then put in a marble with some paint on it and roll the marble around on the piece of paper inside the box, you get some amazing and colorful patterns! The children were very proud of their art, and they couldn’t wait for the sheets of paper to dry.
As you can see, it doesn’t take much to help the children who have been orphaned and have special needs to have an enjoyable day. Global Partners in Life provides for the medical needs of the children as well as their educational needs. We also meet their daily needs for food and workers to provide care for them, and some days, we just hang out and let them have a fun day being a child!