In 1998, Christian Action in Hong Kong (CA) became involved with programs for orphans and abandoned children by co-managing Qinghai Province’s first children's home with the Civil Affairs Bureau in Xining, the provincial capital. We have cared for over 500 children in the Xining Children’s Home, which is designed and equipped specifically for their needs. Nearly 80% of our children suffer from some sort of physical or mental disability. At the home, we provide children and youth with a rehabilitation program and special education led by experienced therapists. We believe that the earlier these disabled children receive such treatment, the more independent they can become later in life. When necessary, Christian Action also raises funds and arranges for specialized medical treatment, including reconstructive and life-saving surgeries. In order to better serve the children, CA supports overseas adoptions and to date around 250 children have begun new lives with their "forever families" in the US, Canada and in Europe in Spain, Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

CA also help to place children and youths with loving foster families, for whom we also provide support. Foster care has proved to be richly-rewarding for the children and their new families, as well as vital for the community as the general public begin to understand the value and needs of children with disabilities. CA also oversees six Simulated Home Environments that provide a family-like safe haven for a variety of age groups.

Christian Action has served disabled children at the Xining Children’s Home for 24 years now, and the experience has been invaluable as we work to promote their acceptance by society and right to live as Special Needs persons in Qinghai. Despite the high rate of birth defects, no resources were previously available to help parents deal with their child’s mental or physical disabilities. We were thrilled when funds became available for a children's rehabilitation center - the first ever in the province, which the government invited us to help set-up and run!

In October 2007, the Xining Children's Rehabilitation Center was opened to serve special needs children from the Xining Children's Home and the local community. Because this was a brand new field for the locals, we brought together a team of Hong Kong-based professionals to assist local builders and staff with the design and equipment the center.     In 2019, a new Xining Children's Home was being built at a new site, together with a new Xining Children's Rehabilitation Center, this time with a service capacity that has increased 6 times in order to replace the old Home. In this new facility, we are able to open up the facility further for the use for the general public community as well, so that parents who have special needs children can be supported, and trained in this area of care.

Occupational and physical therapists, special-education teachers and social workers were also brought in to work with the children and to train local families and staff. The latter group will eventually run the center once they are fully qualified.

More importantly, special needs children and their parents are learning life-changing skills and no longer feel as isolated as they once were. It is our goal that by increasing independence for the disabled, supporting their families, educating the public and encouraging the acceptance of the disabled, these children will no longer be abandoned.

Approximately half of Qinghai's population are Tibetan, Mongolian, Salar, Hui, or Tu ethnic minorities and are either farmers, or semi-nomadic herders. Most families here live in a cold and inhospitable environment, where CA is helping them to obtain better living prospects for a better future. Where they live on the oxygen-thin high-altitude grasslands, the elevation averages over 3,000 meters above sea level and the weather is extremely harsh, their homes were only tents made of yak hair. In 1997, the Qinghai Poverty Alleviation Office asked Christian Action to help this beleaguered population.

Basic education is arguably one of the most effective tools for alleviating poverty and improving livelihood. Yet in Qinghai, nomadic herdsmen live scattered over vast tracts of land; for their children, attending school would often mean hours of walking each way. Now however, children in one prefecture, finally have easy access to schools — and an education.

Christian Action has built, re-built or renovated ten schools since 2000, including those in the desolate Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.