SCIS helps twins get life-saving surgery

Since 2013, Shanghai Community International School has been a committed long-standing partner of Heart to Heart, a non-profit charity which provides corrective surgery for children from all over China with congenital heart defects. Families of these children often bring in a combined household income of just 3,000 yuan (US$437) to 6,000 yuan per year, making the 30,000 yuan price tag of a single heart surgery a near impossible feat. 

Through its continued support, our SCIS community has been able to sponsor over 25 surgeries since our first ever fundraising initiatives. Last year, on top of the 158,000 yuan that was raised during our weeklong One Heart One Love fundraising efforts, a further 90,000 yuan was raised during our annual art auction at the SCIS Hongqiao ECE campus. Enough to sponsor three additional life-saving surgeries or eight all-together!

Earlier this month, Haley van Os, SCIS parent and member of the Parents and Friends Association Committee, along with two other PAFA members, took a trip to Yodak Hospital, where recent patients are kept for a weeklong recovery period. There she stopped by to say hi to one of our most recent sponsored children in recovery, Wang Yibo, a 6-year-old boy from Shandong Province. 

Upon meeting Yibo and his family, it was discovered that his twin brother, Wang Yisheng, was also recently diagnosed with CHD and would require corrective surgery.

“The whole family, including the father and both grandparents, have traveled 13 hours by train just to get to Shanghai,” commented Haley. “We knew we had to be the ones who sponsored both of the twins and ensure the family was looked after.

“The family was extremely happy!” she added. “We even purchased a basket of fruits for them to enjoy and the brother was amazed that there was dragon fruit, which happened to be his favorite fruit!”

The following week, the SCIS team paid a surprise visit to check on Wang Yisheng, the twin brother who most recently went under the knife, and the rest of his family. Our visiting community members gave out gifts to the two boys and their family, including toys, scarfs and coloring crayons, which both boys eagerly opened, to then spend the better half of our two-hour-long visit drawing. 

Both brothers are now fully recovered and back home in their hometown of Shandong, and are expected to make full recoveries and be able to live life as if they were never born with CHD. SCIS would like to thank every one of its community members for their time, effort and donations and being a huge part of making this happen.