Our beginnings
Where I Am Who? came from.
Janice Neilson wrote the book during a four-year project in rural China. Endeavor Children's Services was founded to carry that work forward.
The FXB China project
Where the work began
Founder Janice Neilson was the creator and executive director of a program in China sponsored by the Association François-Xavier Bagnoud, in partnership with UNICEF and the Chinese Women's Federation. It was a pilot project, built to demonstrate that strategic community-based intervention can profoundly improve the lives of orphans and vulnerable children and the families who care for them. The four-year project's outcomes are commended in the UNICEF Best Practices publication “Responding to Children, Young People and AIDS”.
Janice wrote and published I Am Who? during that project. The children it was written for already had help with food, health care, and schooling. What they did not have was any way to work through what had happened to them. UNICEF has since cited the book as a Best Practice therapeutic tool.
Endeavor Children's Services was founded in 2011 to carry that work forward.
What was measured
What the evaluation found
From 2007 to 2009, over 400 children — who were already receiving material aid — completed the 12-month I Am Who? curriculum. A formal evaluation proved the program dramatically reduced depression and boosted self-esteem among these vulnerable youth.
94%
reduction in depression — from 89% of children to 5%
90%
measured self-esteem soared, from 9%
From the formal evaluation of the FXB China project, 2007–2009.