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| July 2015
report |
| We’ve just
made another quarterly transfer of money for Acheru. As well as
the budget to cover running costs there were a number of other
payments towards building work or equipment, but we will soon be
able to regard ‘development’ as complete, and use all
our resources for running costs. This should simplify our
administrative work here, and I hope make things more
straightforward at Acheru. Over the years our work has been wide
ranging but in future we will be concentrating exclusively on
Acheru. It is already much bigger than we had ever envisaged and
we want to ensure that we provide the support they need to run
the unit effectively and maintain high standards. |
| Although we
want to focus on Acheru, we receive other requests for help.
Some may be unrealistic, and easy to turn down, but others are
harder to ignore. One request is on behalf of a teenage girl who
had lost a leg in an accident some years ago. She attends
secondary school, and is badly affected by her lack of mobility
so needs an artificial leg. We think her parents could probably
afford this, but they won’t help, so what should we do? If
we simply say it’s her parents responsibility, nothing will
be done and the girl will suffer, so we have agreed to pay. |
| Another plea
for help is for a young girl who badly needs genital surgery.
This doesn’t come close to meeting our criteria for Acheru,
but no one else seems willing to help so we have agreed to pay
the hospital fees. |
| We try to keep
an open mind about such cases, it’s difficult to be too
restrictive and leave children to suffer. It raises a serious
concern though about how restrictive some agencies can be, and
the times we have had to intervene when really someone else
should have taken responsibility. |
| Now to a more ‘typical’
Acheru patient. Samuel, 14 years old, was brought to Acheru in
February this year following a community outreach. He had
severely restricted mobility due to his deformed feet. “The
feet could get blisters and wounds, no shoes would fit me
because my feet were folded behind. I lost hope of going to
school because of pain and children laughing at me.”
Samuel suffered emotionally too, his family broken and badly
affected by having a disabled child. “All the time I
pray to the Almighty God that my family can get united once
again and rejoice with the happiness of my healing as a complete
family. I want to thank all the people who have put in all their
efforts to give me a new life. God bless you all.” |
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| Samuel
before and after surgery |
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