The mission of All Girls Allowed is to restore life, value, and dignity to girls and mothers, and to reveal the injustice of China's One-Child Policy.
Since 1980, the implementation of China’s One-Child Policy has led to female gendercide, abandonment of daughters, human trafficking and violations of women’s reproductive rights. Through education, advocacy, strategic partnerships, and legal defense, All Girls Allowed strives to:
- Mobilize the global community to advocate against the cruel methods used to enforce the One-Child Policy;
- Educate families against gender-based pregnancy termination by easing the burden of having a baby girl with monthly stipends and a baby shower gift of clothes and food;
- Provide legal defense and asylum counseling to mothers who are in danger of forced pregnancy termination or involuntary sterilization;
- Support abandoned children, the vast majority of whom are girls, by raising funds for orphanages; and
- Reunite trafficked women and children with their families.
All Girls Allowed is an initiative of the Jenzabar Foundation, Inc.
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More specifically, through this organization, a sum of only $240 a year can save the life of a girl--from gendercide, forced abortion, abandonment, child trafficking, etc. Only $20 a month provides enough for her basic needs (as the website states, that's less than most of us pay when we eat out).
Take a moment to visit the organization's website--even if you don't end up donating, it's worth it simply to educate and inform yourself about the very real injustices and inequities affecting these mothers and their daughters in China.
If you happen to be an adoptive parent who has adopted from China or a prospective adoptive parent, no matter how difficult it may be for you to read about and expose yourself to these harsh truths and realities, keep in mind that you are not the one who is having to live them.
7 comments:
I hope and pray someday that the Chinese mothers who really did need to leave their children at birth can post the date and location they left their child so someway, somehow there can be a safe reunion. My eyes tear up at even typing this... I know the sadness and insecurity; we actually talked about it last night a bit. In theory this is a great cause, I am not sure how effective it can be with changing policy of a communist regime BUT it is a great movement in the right direction and I will support the cause wholeheartedly! There is a group of parents who have adopted from ChenZhou in Hunan, that have purchased industrial washers and dryers, as well as, incubators for the infants that are found that need them. It feels so small but we cannot send money directly because it can be stolen en route. Another organization, Half The Sky Foundation is a great group that provides a high ratio of nannies for the children in their orphanage. It has gone from 1 nanny to around 50 children to ~1:4 ratio. I babble but programs like these are invaluable. Thanks for the post!!!
@ Melissa: "In theory this is a great cause, I am not sure how effective it can be with changing policy of a communist regime..."
There was a time when people uttered the same doubts about segregation in America, apartheid in South Africa...there was a time when people thought the wall in Germany would always exist, that the Cold War would never end...
Well, segregation has been undone. Apartheid has been overturned. (Of course, the long-term repercussions must still be addressed & managed, but nonetheless real and tangible progress has been made.)
The wall came down. The Cold War ended. Of course, the world is imperfect, and when one injustice or conflict ends, there is another to overcome. But in the words of Helen Keller, who overcame incredible odds, "...although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."
To borrow from the words of Winston Churchill, I will "never, never, never, never give up" believing that drastic, dramatic, profound, tangible change can happen...
Call me naive in my idealism...call me a fool...but change never happens among those who dare not dream the impossible...
And as Eleanor Roosevelt said, "“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
And as someone else has said, you can't let what you cannot do stop you from doing what you can do...
Exactly. "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
I will go to my grave helping whatever way I can to end this nonsense. No woman should be forced to abandon her child, and no child should be forced to be raised by strangers.
I am going to send you my full reply off-line, if you will. But I will concede that taking a portion of my sentence out of the whole does sound horrific...I apologize. The "cause" is great. Period. A better word would have been "method." I still wholeheartedly agree that this is a great organization. As you know, I too, am an idealist. I want my little lady to have the opportunity to met her mom in China, she cannot do that because it is against the law to abandon a child, yet it is not against the law to kill the babies...odd, twisted.
Thanks to everybody supporting All Girls Allowed...I'm Tessa--Communications Director in our Boston Office.
If anybody is interested in going a little further and either volunteering with us, holding a small event for AGA or even sharing your story, please contact me at tessa@allgirlsallowed.org. Thanks!
Any move, small as it may be and impossible as it may seem, is a step forward. I applaud "All Girls Allowed."
This is a new organization that is just now filing for non-profit status.
I heard about it Tuesday and as an amom to two daughters born in China, I am very hopeful about this organization.
I contacted the organization and asked how donations are allocated. Right now, Jenzibar (sp) is covering all the overhead costs so 100% of donations go directly to program goals.
I have emailed links about the organization to several China adoption yahoo groups-- trying to get the word out.
Our family also supports Half the Sky.
Individually, our contributions may be small, but as a group maybe we can make a difference.
I cannot imagine the horrific reality my daughter's moms were and are forced to live with-- and the majority of women in China.
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