More Kids Get Treatment
Posted by Dina Fesler on December 4th 2009 in NEED Magazine, Organizations, Photo Essays
One of the founders of NEED, Kelly Kinnunen, is working on a video documentary project in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is travelling with Dina Fesler of the nonprofit Children’s Culture Connection. Among other places, they have been visiting Charahee Qambar, an IDP camp where people are living in desperate conditions with very little aid. Dina emailed an update about what they are doing and we wanted to share it with you.
Yesterday we discovered that we had received just enough online HCMF donations to take the little girl in yesterday’s blog photo to the hospital. She was severely malnourished, and has quite a few other issues as well that we will learn more about today. Her name is Sahebo, and for as tiny and fragile as she is, she is quite a little fighter. When the doctor drew blood for the blood test she screamed her head off for about 15 minutes straight. It reminded me of my darling daughters when they got their kindergarten shots a few months ago. Such drama queens.
After Sahebo was all checked in, we resumed our film project which included an interview with a man named Mawlawi Arsalan Rahmani, the former minister of education for the Taliban government, and currently a member of the Afghan senate. I’m telling you, Najib knows just about everyone. For an hour and a half I talked with Rahmany about everything from 9/11 to Al Qaeda to Obama’s 30,000 more troops to how he believes that peace can come to Afghanistan. It was one of the most fascinating interviews I’ve ever conducted, for sure, and I might need a few days to sort out my thoughts before I can report clearly on it all. He invited me to come back again some time for tea and to chat more, so I guess we are off to a good start on the peace-building part.
It is now 6:15 am and we just got another donation so we will be heading to camp first thing to bring another child to the hospital. I will keep you posted as always.
Children’s Culture Connection War Kids Relief
(Donations can be made to this project through War Kids Relief. Please indicate HCMF in the PayPal memo.)
December 5th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Hi…
I saw the amazing work you are doing in a Start Tribune article and am wondering how many children you are capable of treating if you had the funds. What is your typical donation size? What percentage of your donations go directly to helping the children? I am praying about how we can help tonight. I will pray for you and your efforts as well. THANK YOU for your work…my heart was broken seeing the plight of these precious children.
Tiffany
December 7th, 2009 at 7:53 am
Dina, you’ve got all my support here in Japan. I feel as though you are honestly one of the most motivated, kind-hearted persons I’ve ever met and I’m so happy that this story is beginning to gain the attention it deserves. I am including this blog in my Japan blog (estenson.blogspot.com) hopefully it will shed a bit more light. Wish I could be doing more…wish I weren’t a broke young college student who could donated enough to make a difference! Haha, someday though, someday. I just need people like you to keep the opportunities open.
Tiffany, if you read this, I have no idea who you are, but I do know Dina! She is fantastic, and I had the pleasure of briefly working with her last summer. You can’t go wrong in Dina Fesler’s hands!
December 7th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Hi Tiffany,
Thanks so much for your kind words, as well as your interest in helping support the children in the IDP camp. Every day we uncover new information and need as we continue to try to help. Right now I can tell you that there are three categories of kids we are helping: very serious medical/malnourishment, severe pneumonia, and mild pneumonia/tonsilitis. We brought the most serious/malnourishment kids in first (only three that we have found so far-that’s good) and they are all still in the hospital. We check on them daily but all are still undergoing more testing.
In the last three days we have brought in 23 kids who fall in to the last two categories. The more severe pneumonia cases get admitted for three days and the mild cases get medicines to take home.
We anticipate that there are at least 170 kids who need to be admitted into the hospital (and several hundred that need to get prescription meds) and we are just taking as many as we can in one day. We can only help as many kids as we have funding for so hopefully we will be able to get to them all.
100% of the funds go for helping the children, but there are many things that make this happen. Funds go for the medicine, medical tests, inpatient expenses for the serious cases, and the car/driver to get the kids to and from the hospital (no ambulances available!). We buy a three week supply of milk for every child to take with them after they are discharged to help them get more vitamins while they recover. And for the children that are admitted to the hospital we give the parent who stays with them a $10 per diem so that they can eat while they are there. These people just have no resources of their own and we want to make sure that a parent can stay with them.
Right now, we are only able to keep this fund open until the end of the year and we will continue to use the money to help as many children as we can reach. In the meantime, we are working hard with the camp health clinic to see how we can help them access more funding so that they can continue the work we have been doing. One way or another we are going to make sure that these kids get the help they deserve.
Thanks again for writing,
Dina
P.S. Hey Sam..thanks for the glowing endorsement! Hope Japan is treating you well!
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