Hi, I am José Daniel, I am 6 and a half years old and I live with my parents and 1 older brother and sister.
I always feel happy and cheerful and I also like to sing and I love buses of which I know a song in English!
I realize that God made me different from other children, because they told my mohter I have something called Autism.
I love my mummy because she has tried to enroll me in several schools, but after a while they don't accept me there anymore because I'm very restless, I don't pay attention, I run around a lot. I feel bad for not being accepted at school.
My mother sought help in many institutions, but they did not help her a lot until she met the Fundación Cuidado Infantil Dominicano in October 2021.
Auntie Rosa started visiting me every Wednesday. She showed my mother how to play with me so I would learn new things like matching, finishing puzzles, dressing up as an adult, filling and arranging letters and many other things. I am a little less restless now also, because I like the things autie Rosa shows my mother how to play with me, every week she comes with something new!
I feel very happy with her help and my mother too.
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The mother of José Daniel is one of the mothers that are very satisfed with the positive change the teaming up with our foundation has brought to her family and management of José Daniel.
Every week we get new requests from mothers for our help and the last three years the mayority of them are from children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
We would like to thank you for your continued support for our work with the families of and young people living with disabilities. Most of them are happier, more social, more engaged and some of them even have been gainlfully employed! We are still working on getting them accepted in the schools!
This coming Wednesday July 12th we will have the next special campaign on our GlobalGiving platform page.
There will be matching of 30% for donations from USD100 onwards going up to 50% for donations of USD1000.
Please feel free to open you heart towards our work and consider making a donation that will create extra funds for our work!! Any gift is welcome!!
The families, children and young people with disabilities will be very thankful!
We are very grateful for your support to this project. This project has been totally funded and will be desactivated.
Your donation has provided funding to our Foundation enabling us to work for 4 years with around 250 different families of children and young people living with disabilities. We provided weekly home visits that equip the parents in how to understand their child's condition and how to best stimulate their development, using an indivual approach. It allowed us to work with around 50 young people living with disabilities in providing twice a week also individulaized classes to help them develop their social and pre-vocational skills. Some have moved on because they found employment, others because they moved away, two were excepted in the schoolsystem and sadly one passed away.
But our mission to these families and young people continues, If you want to continue to support our work, you can switch your suppport to our project Progress for 100 Dominican kids with special needs
Their we will continue to keep you updated on our work through our regular reports.
Thank you again in name of the families and children we serve.
Today I would like to tell you the story of Oliver,
This is a boy that was born with hydrocephalus. He got a shunt placed in order to drain the fluid from his skull, because the normal channels were blocked. Here is his story:
Hello, my name is Oliver and I am 19 years old. I live with my grandmother. I have never gone to a formal school because they told my parents that I would never learn. But now I am participating in the group of adolescents with disabilities of the “Fundación Cuidado Infantil Dominicano” in Cienfuegos.
It happened that 6 years ago I was mopping the floor in a house when the supervisor Delfina was doing a development test on a child in the house next door. We talked and then she visited my home. She spoke with my grandmother and offered that I could participate in a group close to my home to learn things to be more independent. She enrolled me and since that day I am very happy to go every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon to class.
Teacher Nurys has taught me many things such as the letters of the alphabet, numbers, writing my name, reading a little, adding, knowing the important days of my country, taking dictation, coloring, painting, among many other things.
They also managed to convince my grandmother to teach me to help more at home. I learned how to wash clothes, cook simple things like frying or boiling eggs and I look forward to learn more!
Another exciting thing is when we go for an outing or get together with the other groups. Last year in August we went to a botanical garden in Santiago!! I enjoyed it very much!!
On the other days of the week I collect empty bottles to sell and to help my grandmother with buying the food at home. Knowing my numbers and adding helps me a lot now!!
Thanks to Delfina and Nurys for helping me so much!
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As we all know good and bad things happen to people. Just last week Oliver's shunt got somehow blocked and he needed to be hospitalized. Because of some complications hHe passed away only 5 days later. Our whole team is very much affected by this.
He was doing so well in the group and he was such a happy young man. This is a hommage to his life!
But despite this loss, we all need to continue to work with the other children and adolescents and their families to give them a better change in life to go to school, to be gainfully employed and in some cases to start their own family.
Thank you for your contributions to our work! We appreciate you very much!
Wishing you the best
UBALDO
Ubaldo was born without anus and ears. His family arranged for him to get all the operations he needed and also get private physiotherapy. But when the money was becoming tight, they decided to enroll him in the home visiting program of the Fundación Cuidado Infantil Dominicano. At this point he was 1 year and 4 months old and could not sit by himself, did not use his hands and was moving around his home on his back, pushing himself around with his feet.
This is his story:
At the beginning I did not like the visits of Magdalena very much, but since they gave me interesting things to look at and touch, I soon liked it more than going to physiotherapy. where I cried a lot because they were always putting me in different positions that made me uncomfortable.
When I started to likethe visits, I discovered quickly I could do things with my hands, like grabbing my drinking bottle, without my mother having to hold it. She put me in a chair that my mom had (in the photo above) and she gave me blocks to put in and take out of a container. I did not even like to stand on my feet, but since she gave me something to do on the table, I forgot that I was standing on my feet. That made my mum very happy. Between the visits my mum and siter Genesis continued to play with me the way they had learned.
What I really liked was scribbling, throwing things as far as I could and playing ball with my sister Genesis while I was sitting on the floor resting my back on my mother sitting behind me. Really, many times I do not understand much what they want, because my ear-holes are covered and I can only hear loud sounds. But I learned to communicate with my hands: to say goodbye, come, I do not want more or indicate what I do want to have, eat or drink.
My parents are also trying to solve my hearing problem. After 3 years in the program I am able to walk around and fulfill some simple mandates, eat by myself, and I love coloring.The Fundación Cuidado Infantil also helped my parents to enroll me in the school for the deaf! I hope to learn there how to communicate better with my family!
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Thank you so much for helping us help children like Ubaldo develop to their potential and when possible get them enrolled in a school!!
Here is an update on the progress of the two little girls Amanda and Michelle you got to know in earlier reports:
Amanda
Amanda was born with Down's Syndrome in November 2018 and her parents did not receive any orientation about how to stimulate her development for 8 months. Then her mother was referred to our Foundation by another parent in the program and enrolled her in the home visiting program. The home visitor Mella started to work with her mother once per week, explaining about the Down's Syndrome condition and all the additional problems it can bring along, therefore she advised the parents to go for a medical consult and keep following up. At the same time Mella started to evaluate Amanda’s development and show her mother every week a specific activity to stimulate Amanda in different developmental areas. At that time Amanda was a very floppy little girl, did not make any sound, did not even roll over and had no head control.
After being in the program for only 5 months, Amanda haddeveloped good head control, could roll over and even sit up by herself, was repeating syllables, said even a few words, indicates her likes and dislikes and applauds!
The amazing thing is that when she came for an evaluation with the Physiotherapy students in April 2020, she actually just started to take some steps, while her mother was holding her. And now almost a year later in February 2022 she is quite able to move around her home, climb stairs, is learning to put rings on a peg and to use a nesting toy. She is quite a character with her own mind, as you can appreciate in the video that you can see via the dropbox link.
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Michelle
Little Michelle was born in October 2018, and was 2 years old in the former report.
She was 13 months old when enrolled in the home visiting program. She has a mild form of Cerebral Palsy and at the time of enrolment she could not sit, or stay seated when put in this position or crawl on the floor. She had no head control.
When 2 years old, thanks to her grandmother‘s dedication she had developed good head control, crawl, sit although only when put in this position and not to stable yet, and jump up and down when put on her feet while holding her.
In the video you can see the progress she made the first year in the program and just this week her grandmother surprised us with a video where you can clearly see how well she is walking now by herself only 6 months later this is the last part of the video.
This is a wonderful result thanks to her grandmother who is making sure she is stimulating Michelle in everything the home visitor Nurys is teaching her every week in an individualized program following normal child development!
There is still a lot more to work on, but now her grandmother is busy keeping an eye on Michelle at all times, making sure she is safe.
We hope you will appreciate the progress she made when looking at the video that you can see via the dropbox link. I made a foto of the video to give you a first look.
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I hope you enjoyed reading the progress stories of the Amanda and Michelle, as we and their families are very pleased with their progress.
Thanks to your support we were able to work with these families and many others also!
Your support of our programs is very much appreciated!!
Links:
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