By Frank Peterson | President
Patient stories
Keila
Keila is a nine-year-old who attended our rural mission day a couple of months ago at the National Hospital in La Tinta.
Born with a cleft lip and palate, Keila was three when her mother took her to a hospital at Retalhuleu to repair her cleft lip. Unfortunately, there was no follow up and no organization to help her receive corrective surgery for her cleft palate.
Two years ago, teeth started to grow and come out through her upper lip, for which she received ridicule from other children, forcing her to use a cloth to cover her face in public.
We have already scheduled Keila to have both maxillofacial and cleft palate surgery by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia team coming to Guatemala this month. As part of our support, she will be escorted to and from the hospital site and provided with post-operative assistance.
Keila wants to go back to school without feeling embarrassed and eventually become a teacher. Through our assistance we will be helping to make her dreams come true.
Yesenia
Yesenia is a girl from Totonicapan who was part of our nutritional program. Three years ago, we did her lip and palate surgeries, but she still has a small opening in her palate that will be corrected this month.
Thanks to her timely initial surgeries and our speech therapy, Yesenia can speak very well. Our health promoter, Migdalia, who visited her every month for 2 years, told us "I feel like she is one of my own, I love her and love seeing her happy and healthy".
Thanks to our donors, friends, partners and incredible volunteers like Migdalia, "happy and healthy" are two words that we are able to put together for many of our patients.
Upcoming surgical missions
On October 31 and November 7, 2017, our Guatemalan based counterpart, Asociación Compañero Para Cirugía, will be evaluating patients at no cost in Antigua Guatemala for the next surgical rounds.
Previous missions
Between June 1st and August 31, 2017, the Faces of Hope team was able to perform 32 cleft lip and 17 cleft palate surgeries, among other procedures.
Our cleft infant nutrition program
Between June 1st and August 31, 2017, we had 218 children enrolled in our cleft infant nutrition program. This program helps children gain weight and strength prior to surgery.
To help our nutrition program, we also created an amazon wish list with a much-needed item: manual breast pumps. These pumps help children born with a cleft lip and palate receive all the nutrition they need without having to resort to formula, which can cost as much as $600 per child. Paired with feeding bottles, breast pumps provide a cost-effective option prior to surgery.
We have received several breast pumps already, which are being taken in person to Guatemala and reaching the mothers in need.
Thank you
We feel absolutely honored and privileged to continue to receive so much support for our work. As we look at the struggles taking place in so many regions at the same time, we are grateful for the opportunity to be part of a team that is able to help so many in need in rural Guatemala.
We wish you health and happiness.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
