At 29, Chinese orphan Su Yiya was carving out a successful career as a partner in the huge investment firm, TenCent, for which he ran WeChat (China’s counterpart to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). At the 2018 Pan Asia Family Placement Conference in Shanghai, he spoke of his life transformation when he was moved from an orphanage to a foster home twenty years earlier.
The seeds for his transformation were planted decades before when a 13 year old Chinese boy enrolled in Robert Glover’s middle school in Norwich, England. Robert stood up to the school bullies for the boy, and they became friends. Intrigued by China, Robert wanted to travel there, but life happened — school, football, serving in the navy, marrying and having six children, working in the “social care school system for ‘maladjusted boys’” assigned by the court… Then he developed Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a progressively paralyzing and fatal condition.
A devout Christian, his mum called a prayer meeting at her church. When he was healed, he became a man of deep faith. At a church meeting, a colleague praying for Robert’s wife to conceive said, “You will have as many children as stars in the sky”. When their twin boys were delivered, Robert thought that fulfilled the “prophecy.”
Through a meeting with another church member who evangelized in China, he learned about the one-child policy introduced in 1979 to control the rapidly expanding population. Because rural families depended on sons to care for them in old age, a few exceptions were made. If the first child was a daughter, the couple could have one more child. Nonetheless, China orphanages filled up with healthy girls and disabled boys. There were no fostering programs, and Robert started to see a path for him and his family.
“Prophecies” from church members supported his going to China, and in 1996, he visited there as a UK social worker.
“My vision was strategic. I wanted to see a complete overhaul of the system of orphan care across the whole of China”.
Fueled by faith and prayer, he decided to persevere. One synchronicity led to another and doors opened: Virgin Airlines became a sponsor and China’s planned to bring him in as a commuting social care consultant became possible. But important government officials in England and China backed his vision, and he was hired in a three year permanent position – Senior Consultant in Social Welfare.
At the contract signing ceremony, a Chinese official told Robert that all documents originating from him would have to be signed with an official seal, which could only contain Chinese characters. So he would need an appropriate Chinese name. The officials launched into a 20 minute conversation to choose it, and then informed him of his new Chinese name.
“I am pleased to say we have found your name. But first, we want to tell you what your name means, since the meaning of a person’s name is very important in our culture. Yours means this: ‘As many stars as there are in the sky, you will be father to children in China’. Your name shall be Lao Ba-Ba. Something like Old Father.”
“I had come to China with a heart for the Chinese people and a passion to serve them — to empower them and lift them up,” Robert said. He began the family placement (foster care) system in Shanghai while his entire family served all they met in their day to day living there.
When the three year contract expired, they moved to Bejing and re-adjusted. The plan was to roll out the same successful Shanghai family placement project to another fifteen provinces. Robert founded a non-profit, Care for Children, which contracted with the government to do that. He and his staff travelled the country, networked and facilitated regional training workshops monthly.
They organized a National Childcare Conference every two years. On Day 1, there were speeches and presentations from government officials and experts. On Day 2, each region could present on their projects. This became a best practices exchange and way to speak directly to the attending VIPs. It was a highly effective platform for creating change.
There was a big exhibition hall where each province showcased their projects. Different provinces developed different areas of expertise: Yinchuan excelled at equipment for disabled children: Chengdu created an advanced community education program bringing together children and families of different towns and villages (formerly a Tibetan community): Bejing became an expert in monitoring statistics.
At an end of conference party, each province performed a local / cultural skit in costume. This was a highly effective transformational event as well, covering team building, respect for diversity, culture alignment…
In 2005, Robert was called to Buckingham Palace to receive the OBE – Order of the British Empire – from Queen Elizabeth.
By 2011, Care for Children was working with 38 placement project sites in 27 different provinces – and a quarter of a million children had been placed.
By 2013, the work had expanded to Thailand and North Korea. Then it expanded to Vietnam and Cambodia.
By 2018, 85% of orphans were being placed in foster homes, and the estimate was more than a million children had been placed since the program began.
Knowing the work isn’t done, Robert continues to serve as an advisor at conferences, events and consortiums globally.
(Note: While Robert is a Servant Leader by the academic definition, he is also a visionary leader, and primarily a “spirit guided” leader. (Blogs on similar leaders will be titled Spirit Guided Leader.)
As Many As the Stars: A Story of Change for the Children of China, Robert Glover, Hodder $ Stoughton, 2020.
Children of Shanghai, a BBC documentary film by Richard Nash.
