Project 1 - Brazil

The Ponseti Technique Clubfoot Project

The £27,500 we raised in 2006 will allow all of the 7000 Brazilian children born with clubfoot each year access to a trained orthopaedic surgeon who will be able to treat them with the Ponseti technique, which has a 94% success rate.  This money will make a huge difference to the lives of thousands of children and families throughout Brazil.

Click here for more details on the project.                                

Click here for the full project proposal from Dr. Monica Nogueira.

For further information about clubfoot and the Ponseti technique visit: www.global-help.org.

Project 2 - Colombia

£225 donated for the foot operation of Maria Daisy Quinto, from Medellin

Maria Daisy Quinto is a 41 year old mother, working part-time as a housemaid, left to bring up two children on her own, Andres Felipe (17) and Laura Vanessa (13), in a slum in Medellin, Colombia.  Daisy has worked all her life to raise her children and put them through school.  She was born with an ankle disability which has been deteriorating and made it impossible for her to be able to walk the 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to and from her work every day.  If she didn't have the operation she would not be able to continue working and her son, Andres, would have to give up high school and go to work and her daughter, Laura, would likely follow.  Education is the only hope for these children to get out of the slums.

The doctor who performed the treatment, waved his fee which brought the price of the operation to around £450. This was to pay for the anesthesia and the steel rods that had to be put into the ankle.

Daisy's operation was a complete success and she in now in rehabilitation,  attending the clinic classes to learn how to walk again.

Project 3 - Guatemala

£2300 a year needed to help malnourished newborn babies

Dr Susana Molina from the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Guatemala City has proposed a project to help malnourished newborn babies. Currently the paediatric department does not have the budget to carry out education for mothers on how to feed children and the hospital admits 2000 malnourished newborn babies every year which they need to feed.  This project will teach the mothers the importance of breast feeding and would also help fund artificial milk provided for babies whose mother cannot breast feed.

Click here for more details on the project.

Project 4 - Guatemala

Escuela Republica de Francia in Guatemala City

 £5000 needed

Renovating an existing building into a school activities hall and providing equipment (white boards, computer, TV and activities equipment).  The project has been approved by the Guatemalan Ministry of Education.  The school have planning permission for the activities hall which will be called the  'LA VIDA' hall.

For more photos click here

Project 5 - Peru

Provide scholarship funding to the 'Villa Maria pre-school' located in the slums of Lima, which offers education to children who would not otherwise have the opportunity to go to school. It costs £12 a month, or £120 per academic year, to educate a child from a disadvantaged background.  La Vida intends to fund, next year's intake of 20 pupils and will continue to fund their full pre-school education for the next 4 years.

£4500 funded in 2008

Click here for full project proposal

Click here to see the children who will be receiving the scholarships and starting school in March 2008.

We will also be providing essential equipment for the school:

Computers/software and printers (ideally 10 computers); Purpose built games and rides for their playground (as opposed to makeshift blocks they have now); A basic library of educational and recreational books.

Project 6 - Colombia

Funding operations children born into poverty with cleft palate and cleft lip. The plastic surgeon, Dr. Andres Urrego, and his team, from the organisation De Cara A Colombia, will perform operations in their free time and need only the hospital costs covered.

Click here for full project proposal

£5000 needed

Little Doneapuma, below, was the first child successfully operated on in October 2007.

Doneapuma was born in Murindo on February 1st 2007 to a nomadic tribe called the AIC - both Doneapuma and his mother were soon expelled from the tribe, given their lack of tolerance of the weak.  His mother brought him to the hospital in Medellin where he has been for treated for the last two months. Doneapuma has a cleft lip and palate on the right side of his face.  

Effectively Doneapuma needs 3 operations at the same time (1) To detach the lip from the nose (2) & (3) To Join the two sides of the mouth in the middle - despite the terrible photos Andres is confident the child will look fairly normal after the surgery.  The 3 operations would cost a combined P$2,065,150 (approx £500).

La Vida hopes to fund at least 10 operations per year.

Project 7 - Brazil

Orphanage 'A Casa Jose Antonio de Freitas Lar Guarani' in Xerém, Rio

Xerem is a small town in the county of Duque de Caxias, roughly 45 minutes drive from Rio de Janeiro.

This orphanage looks after 60 children and is under threat of closure.  A group of local Brazilians from Rio de Janeiro have been providing the food and cleaning materials for the last 3 years and now they are looking into how they can gain further support to prevent the orphanage from having to close.

For more photos click here

Project 8 - Brazil

Orphanage and drop in centre in the outskirts of Rio