As I mentioned before the general attitude towards special needs children here is that they should not be given treatment - when Amy asked social welfare what she should do with the SEN children as they get too old for Forever Angels their advice was 'stop feeding them.' It is completely shocking, especially as these are the people who are supposed to be working in the best interests of the children. Amy now had permission to keep the children until they are 18, but at the moment Forever Angels does not have the space, facilities or equipment to manage these children as the grow. It is incredibly sad and I have been trying to spend as much time as I can with them while I'm here. There is potentially going to be a special needs orphange set up in Tanzania, so we will see what the future holds for these beautiful children!
A lot of the work we did this week was with a 3 year old boy who has spastic diplegia cerebral palsy - both his legs are very stiff and he is unable to walk so he commando crawls around. He doesn't have much core strength and is unable to sit up independently, which is really difficult as there can't always be someone there to sit with him. We went into the attic to see what we could find and found a wheelchair, which is definitely not perfect but is much better than what he is doing at the moment! We also found a bumbo chair which he could use to sit in to watch tv etc! However, he absolutely hates them both as he just wants to be the same as all his friends and doesn't understand the benefits it would have for him. This week we have had many tantrums trying to sit him in the chairs. However, today we had a breakthrough! We took in some shaving foam and sprayed it on a tray and he happily sat in his wheelchair playing with it for about an hour with some of the other children! When the activity was over he wanted to get straight out of his chair, but it's a start and hopefully we'll manage to get him to try it again!
A new baby arrived at Forever Angels a few days before I got here and it was clear she had some special needs. She was diagnosed a couple of days ago with microcephalus (a small head - her fontanelle has closed completely) and then had some blood tests on Friday, which showed she had syphillis. This was passed on from her mother, who is currently on a psychiatric ward in hopsital here, she is deaf and mute and was hospitalised after her baby was born although she may not have any psychiatric illness. I went with Amy to take the baby for an injection yesterday which will have cured the syphillis (one injection! It's that easy and it just isn't tested for here). She absolutely screamed and it was awful!! Her arms and legs are already very stiff and high tone, so we are unsure whether the syphillis caused some brain damage or whether she perhaps had a traumatic birth and has cerebral palsy. Her high tone means she can bear weight on her legs and hold her head up already! It has also become clear that she is deaf. Amy is going to go to the hospital tomorrow to tell the doctors her mum had syphillis and get the injection for her. Today I did some exercises with the baby to keep her arms and legs moving and I am going to teach these to the mammas - hopefully by starting early the damage won't be too severe and she will grow up to be able to lead a fairly normal life.
We've also done some really fun things with the kids - we brought them to our house and filled the paddling pool, took them swimming again, and did some painting!
Playing in the mud!
We've also enjoyed relaxing in some beautiful places on our days off
That's about all at the moment but I'll update again soon :)