Foster care is growing increasingly popular in China. There is a deep desire amongst many Chinese couples to carry on giving life and a family upbringing to children who are orphaned or abandoned. But it takes more than a loving heart to make this a reality. This is where organisations like Captivating can help with pilot initiatives like PROJECT EDEN. Our goal is to work with a local community of people to create a secure infrastructure and environment enabling Chinese Foster Couples to do what comes naturally from their hearts – to provide new love, nurture and the hope of a future to children who need help. It is the foster parents who are the ones ultimately responsible for the care of the child and they all want to do a good job. However, due to financial limitations many cannot give the quality of care they desire to give.

PROJECT EDEN exists so we can do our part in helping to make the dreams of these foster parents a reality – to equip and support these parents with the means to make it so. It’s almost always an issue of stable and appropriate infrastructure, combined with reliable professional support. At Eden, the accomodation is secured by Captivating in a long term lease agreement.

While the local community and foster parents take responsibility for their daily consumable needs, Captivating works behind the scenes to provide an infrastructure of support including support staff, and the development of income producing initiatives and medical interventions for the children where possible.

Over the years to come, our job is to help the foster parents identify opportunities for each of the children under their care to ensure that one day each child has the chance to live an independent life – now so much more possible thanks to a solid, safe and reliable family foundation.

Two families call Eden home and 7 children are having a great second chance at a vibrant future. Although small in size, Eden is looking to expand its reach into the local community either in the form of providing support to the large migrant farming community, working directly with migrant schools reaching out to kids that are struggling to do well, or the possibility of working with the local government to use Eden as a support base for disabled children deemed suitable for a family environment.