The children having lunch at the cafeteria.

A few days ago, the work (proposed by the government of Tibet Autonomous Region in 2013) regarding the opening of charity houses that will allow enjoyment of the five guarantees (guaranteed food, clothing, medical care, housing and burial expenses) that sustain orphans and infirm elderly persons as well as allows for the opening of charity houses adopting orphans has been actualized.

The children queuing in line getting food.

A large and bright dormitory building.

63 five-guarantee service centers for the elderly in Tibet have been completed, excluding the one in Nyalam County that has not been wrapped up yet due to the impacts felt there from the 4.25 Nepal earthquake. Children charity houses in seven different places (cities) of Tibet have fully come into service, thereby realizing the target of 100% collectively sustaining the elderly and 100% collectively adopting orphans while providing them the guarantees of the five-guarantee system.

360 children in the Lhasa Children Charity House are all orphans who do not have parents. Before the implementation of “the orphan collective adopting” policy, these children were sent to live in their relatives’ families or in the orphanages run by local people. Nowadays, the children gather here in the large and bright rooms in the charity house which was built to provide for them a fully functional site for participating in different activities: a computer room, a painting room, a library, and a psychological tutorial room etc…

A psychological tutorial room in the Lhasa Charity House for Children.

The loving supermarket in the Lhasa Charity House for Children.

There are 16 families in total in the Lhasa Charity House for Children, each “family” has at average 23 children who have a common “mom”. Everyday this mom takes care of the children’s basic needs thoughtfully, letting them feel like they are loved and cared by their own parents.

The children in the charity house go to different schools, depending on their ages. On every vacation or weekend when they come back home it makes the family bustle with noise and excitement: the naughty children can also take up a quarrel regarding watching some television programs that they like: some of the children want to watch cartoons, some want to watch South Korean TV soap operas, while some want to watch movies. At this time, the children who are of older ages and more mature will take responsibility to distribute time plots for different TV channel viewing, which can meet the demands of the children in different age groups.

A painting room.

Certificates for the children.