CCPF is the only American organization with all volunteer medical teams providing free multi-specialty surgery and rehabilitative care for children with complex disabilities in China’s orphanages and children from families in need, as well as education for medical professionals and caregivers.
We have treated more than 1000 children from all over China, improving children's quality of life and health, increasing their chances of being adopted and raising awareness of disabilities.
Join our team!
CCPF is expanding its reach and needs more volunteer pediatric surgeons, rehabilitative doctors and therapists.
“People always say the children are lucky to have us. But it is our luck that we can help them.”
–Gena Palumbo
More than 1 million Chinese babies are born with a disability annually.
Volunteers play a vital role providing support for the children pre and post surgery. Pictured at the top is Stephanie Yeh comforting a toddler before an operation. Pictured above is a high school volunteer keeping our young patient engaged before his surgery.
Impact
Transforming Lives…
CCPF enables impact
as a catalyst for immediate, continuous and exponential results. Our surgical team performs life-changing operations. We operate on children with extremely complex conditions, which often require multiple procedures and years of follow-up. Our rehabilitative medicine team trains orphanage therapists and caregivers with techniques and exercises that can be taught to many others and help innumerable children. We spend several years at each orphanage to ensure therapists and caregivers receive comprehensive training to be able to care independently for their children.
CCPF builds bridges
and cultivates long-term relationships between orphanages, hospitals, universities, ministries, businesses and socially-oriented entrepreneurs. We spend at least three years in a single location strengthening these ties, especially between hospitals and orphanages. This allows our work to remain on-going between medical trips.
CCPF empowers
our Chinese colleagues and supporters to act as local change agents by pushing the boundaries of medical care to those most in need and in developing local philanthropy.
Our Story
Gena Palumbo on CCPF’s inaugural surgical trip in Harbin, 1999.
Following the adoption of a healthy daughter from an orphanage in Nanjing and wanting to ‘give back,’ Gena Palumbo founded CCPF to improve the everyday lives of Chinese orphans with disabilities through medical intervention.
With the collaboration, approval and trust of China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Public Health, a team of leading experts in pediatric surgery from America and China was formed. Underscoring this collaboration was the intent to further American and Chinese relations through philanthropy.
Twenty years later and going strong, CCPF has expanded its program to also treat children from families in need, make two medical trips a year, provide a rehabilitation program to help children with chronic conditions, and sponsor a fellowship program in NYC for Chinese medical professionals.
Pictured above is baby Angelina who was among CCPF’s first patients. She was adopted by a volunteer nurse who was part of the surgical team that operated on her.
Our Stories
Our work results in immediate, continuous and exponential impact. Here are a few more stories to inspire you.
Programs
Since CCPF’s first surgical trip to China in 1999, the need to help disabled orphans has evolved, as more and more children are born with complex conditions and most will not be adopted. However, in some cases, children born with disabilities are not abandoned, even if their families do not have the resources to properly care for them. CCPF has responded by broadening its reach to include these children in our work.
Dr. David Roye, CCPF volunteer China Medical Director and leading world specialist in pediatric orthopedic spine surgeon, connects with a patient as he assesses the child’s condition.
Our programs are free and focus on three areas: surgical intervention, rehabilitation for children with chronic, non-operable conditions and education for physicians, nurses, orphanage therapists and caregivers.
Surgery
Our surgical team is headed by world renowned pediatric orthopedic, urological and plastics surgeons, pediatricians and nurses. They undertake complex, multi-specialty cases with a cross-disciplinary methodology. As this approach is not widely used in China, we work in tandem with local hospitals and their surgical teams to respond to the most challenging cases and to share our technical knowledge.
CCPF surgeons tackle complex and challenging cases.
Education
Since 2003, CCPF has sponsored a bi-annual fellowship program to provide additional training for Chinese medical professionals who work in the orphanages and hospitals where we are active. The program is designed to provide continuing education for our colleagues while furthering CCPF’s reach and foster greater cultural understanding.
During our medical trips in China, hands-on training and lectures form a cornerstone of CCPF’s mission. Our cross-cultural methodology aims to respond to the needs on the ground and maintain long-term relationships with the people and organizations we work with so the children continue to receive on-going care.
Fellows are mentored by CCPF doctors and their medical teams.
Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation medicine is as transformative as surgery. Many of China’s orphans have chronic disabilities and surgery is not an option for them. CCPF’s team of doctors, physiatrists, physical, occupational, feeding and speech therapists, and orthotists help children learn how to walk, swallow, play and communicate. The children are relieved of extreme pain and discomfort, and given a purpose to their lives.
CCPF volunteer Rehabilitation Medicine Director, Dr. Heakyung Kim, works one-one with children and trains many therapists and caregivers at once.
Something as simple as providing a specially designed seat for infants and toddlers who, otherwise, are laying flat on their back day and night, changes the quality of their life immediately. By altering their position, their visual stimulation is increased, ability to eat and swallow properly improves their health, they can make connections with their caregivers and other children, and develop emotional bonds.
A feeding chair makes it possible for children to eat properly and make contact with their surroundings.
As many children suffer from similar conditions, the training CCPF therapists provide is extremely versatile. The number of children who are treated immediately and in the future is exponential.
Orphanage therapists and caregivers present CCPF’s rehabilitation team with difficult cases. At least 25 people receive training with each case.
Underscoring this impact is a 4-year training program led by CCPF Rehabilitation Medicine Director Dr. Heakyung Kim at the Nanjing Children’s Welfare Institute. This program has resulted in the planning of the first-ever national rehabilitation conference for Chinese therapists and caregivers. This will establish our Chinese colleagues as leaders in the field and the orphanage as a center of excellence for rehabilitative medicine.
CCPF volunteer physical and occupational therapists integrate playing as part their approach to therapy.
Team
CCPF Community
It takes about 100 volunteers from the U.S. and China to run a joint surgical and rehabilitation trip. This collaboration brings together communities of medical professionals, orphanage and hospital leadership, and lay people. The process for each trip begins 6 months beforehand, coordinating with the hospital and orphanages, confirming the volunteer medical team members, reviewing past patient charts for follow-up and examining new cases, arranging for medical supplies and scheduling travel.
Board of Directors
Administration
Partners
Why donate?
CCPF volunteer translator with a young boy from an orphanage in Nanjing who received rehabilitative therapy for his chronic disability.
Disabled children, regardless of where they live, are in need. In the past 20 years, CCPF has made unimaginable contributions to improve the lives of over 1000 children and foster relations between the U.S. and China. Imagine the impact we can make in the next 20 years!
Donate with confidence. All funds are managed and allocated by CCPF in New York.
CCPF is a registered non-profit 501(c)(3) and maintains no religious, political or agency affiliations.
Please consider making a donation that has real impact
$5,000 allows 5 children to receive rehabilitative therapy
$3,500 covers costs for medical instrumentation for implants
$2,500 contributes to medical team travel expenses
$1,000 enables 2 virtual rehab training sessions that will help many children
$500 enables patient & their caregiver travel to a hospital
$250 covers medical supplies
$100 updates medical charts
$50 covers the cost of X-rays
THANK YOU!
News
Featured
