Adia

Adia is a 10 year old little girl who was born with Cerebral Palsy (CP).  She is among the oldest of 9 children in her family, but still looks like an infant.  In August of 2009 she was infected with malaria; inflicting sores and swelling all over her body.  Adia is unable to feed herself so her mother has to soften her food to feed her gradually.
      Spring of Hope (SOH) has been working with Adia for two years.  At first she was much smaller and unable to complete any physical tasks. Now Adia is able to sit up on her own and SOH is providing nutritious food so her body will develop to a healthy size. At this time we are searching for a sponsor for Adia so (SOH) can continue providing her with the care she desperately needs.  Please pray for Adia as she grows that God will touch her right where she is at and wrap her in his arms of protection
      If you or anyone one you know is looking to find a child to sponsor please consider Adia as you pray for God’s direction in this process. Together with Christ we can save children all over the World one child at a time.  Let’s make a difference in the hearts of God’s children TODAY!

AZURUHAMU TOM

Tom was born a normal child in a small village of Nanzungi in Kyerima parish kitimbwa sub county. At age 3months he had severe malaria and was admitted in the hospital for 2months. After the treatment the mother realised that the child had become weak and had poor neck control. They have visited several hospitals and have been told on several occasions that Tom's brain had been damaged by the malaria he got at three months. Soh started working with Tom on the 29-jan- 2009. Currently we have been able to get Tom to walk with support of a walker and also being able to control the seizures he has been having for the last 3years.
Our current focus is on getting Tom be able to walk and develop Functional skills to be as independent as we had make him to become.

Old wheelchair = New Commode!

Working in the community without necessary equipment is always as challenge! This week we were challenged by Nassar, a 14 year-old-boy with Muscular Dystrophy who is slowly becoming weaker due to his condition. At our home visit, the parents explained to us that toileting is becoming an issue and they can no longer hold him over the toilet (a hole in the ground). Due to him not holding any weight on his legs anymore, they were simply sitting him on the ground to use the toilet. Knowing that this is a hygienic issue, Moses and I needed to be creative and make a commode for Nassar from supplies around the house. After a few minutes of looking for nails and trees to make something from scratch, we saw an old wheelchair made out of a plastic lawn chair and wheels hanging from the roof of their house. It was broken and not being used by Nassar anymore. After almost an hour of finding the necessary tools to pull it apart and cutting a hole in the middle of it with a Panga (a large knife used for cutting wood), we were able to construct a commode for Nassar to use! It was great to know that something that would have been put in the garbage back home was a useful piece of equipment in the community. The parents were very excited to know that this would prevent them from sitting Nassar on the dirty ground and promote his independence. It showed me that when there is a will, there is a way and this team is incredible at thinking outside of the box!

Returning to Kangulumira...

Returning to Uganda this summer has evoked a variety of emotions in me. Being greeted by the team with warm hugs and recognizing the families and children has made me feel “at home” in a very short period of time. There are a few changes that are super exciting. The new SOH centre in Kangulumira is absolutely wonderful! It is beautifully decorated and has ample space to treat children on a regular basis. Having a home base for the team for meetings, paperwork, and treatment is a real blessing! Some of the children have made great gains and some have regressed due to illnesses and untreated epilepsy. This is the devastating part. After going through my photos with the team, I realized that there was a substantial number that are now deceased a year later. I assumed when returning, that some children would pass away due to their complicated medical histories but not to this alarming number. Unfortunately the causes were mostly due to untreated illnesses and malnutrition. After spending some time thinking about this horrific tragedy, I came to think about the wonderful work that SOH is doing and how much they need the support and prayers of fellow Christ-followers. The SOH team works very hard to try to ensure these children have a higher quality of life than they had previously. I am truly blessed to be able to work with such an amazing team and know that God is using their strengths and abilities to serve those in need. Proverbs 14:31 says “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God” Thanks Moses, Charles, Teresha, Mawazi & Emma for your hard work and reaching out to the needy!
Melanie Gushnowski, Returning Canadian Volunteer

A hard clinic in Wabukwa

We hard another clinic in Wabukwa this month. It seems to be a very impacted area with a lot of needs including epilepsy medication and nutrition needs. Jonathan gave a talk on nutrition. We saw a girl who was 3 days old and was born with her knee joints backwards. Her mother brought her to our clinic day before she even took her to a hospital or doctor. We had to refer her to an organization that does surgeries for kids with physical disabilities. We also saw a girl with hydrocephalus with VERY severe pressure sores on both sides of her head from laying on her side too much. The mother was educated on how to prevent and heal the pressure sores last month, but she came back this month, and the sores were even worse. The mother has 3 other small children and her husband died, so she was saying she didn't have enough time to make sure her daughter wasn't putting pressure on the side of her head. We really had to emphasize the importance on allowing these wounds to heal. Another hard thing about the clinic was that a girl had a severe seizure during it. It's sad to think about because she was having the seizure due to lack of medication, and they were at the clinic, so that she could get the epilepsy medication.
Needs are being met at the outreach clinic, but some of the needs during this week seemed so big.. and Spring of Hope can only do so much with their limited financial resources.

Diagnosis

Something that has been new to me is that many times, Moses and I have had to diagnosis a child with a disability based on our expertise. In West, a medical doctor will diagnose a child, and then refer them to the OTs. Unfortunately, it doesn't usually work that way in Uganda. For several reasons.. the people in the village many times will take their child to the witch doctor first to be healed.. when that doesn't work then they may go to a hospital or medical clinic or come to Spring of Hope. Medical records aren't kept very religiously, so even if a diagnosis was made the family may not know what it is.
Therefore at the outreach clinics or drop-in days at the office, many new children come. It is important for us to know the birth history and past medical history in order to make an accurate decision on why we think this child has a disability. In some cases, the child was just given to the grandparent and the parents have no contact with her- so birth history and/or complications with pregnancy can also be unknown. It's quite a tedious and sometimes frustrating process. Basically what I'm seeing is that these children are being born.. and they either get sick shortly after birth or possibly at birth.. and it is not treated until much later, which causes more harm to the child. It seems that people here need to be better informed on the urgency of treatment for various illnesses. Spring of Hope does do that, but most of the time the damage has already been done once they have been brought to Spring of Hope. Many families complain that they do not have the money for transport or medical fees, so that is why they wait this long. I feel fortunate for living in the U.S. with systems like medicaid that would provide for those needs.. unfortunately, that would not solve Uganda's problems. Instead we will work to increase awareness... ignorance leads to poverty and vice versa.

Meeting basic needs

On Wednesday, Moses and were doing home visits around the village. On one of our last visits, we met a girl who was 5 years old, but looked small enough to be nearly 2 yrs old. (pictures to come) Her grandmother who takes care of her told us that she has been sick with Malaria and the flu and has not been eating. Her face was so small and her body was skin and bones. She was so fragile to touch and very weak. Her black hair was beginning to turn a shade of yellow from malnourishment. She was very weak as well, and her muscles were very stiff from lying in the same position for long periods of time.

This is one of those situations that I had to step back from my mindset of therapy and really determine how to meet the basic needs of these children. Most of the children are very dirty and unclean, dressed in worn and ripped clothing (if clothing at all). This child in particular was very malnourished. In order to help improve their quality of life, we have been delivering some children's clothing and providing some porridge and education on feeding and nutrition. Once the child's basic needs are met, then we can start to look at different activities of daily living and strengthening/mobility exercises.