Friday- last day in the orphanages

Today is our last day in the orphanages. We split into our two teams- the Sensory team and the Wheelchair team and went to our last two orphanages for the morning. The Sensory team went to Anini and spent time in Casa 1 and Casa 5 and worked with children with profound disabilities in a rural setting outside of Guatemala City. One child that we worked with, Rogelio, was brought to Anini in February when he was 2 years old and 10 months and weighed 8 pounds. He was one of 9 children that the parents were not able to care for and therefore fed them coffee for their only source of nutrition. Due to this, he has extreme malnutrition and also has the diagnosis of Down’s syndrome. He was fitted into a wheelchair/stroller on Thursday and then today we worked on feeding techniques and educating the “mamas” on his visual problems and what his behaviors indicate. For Hugo, another man we saw, we trained 4 of the "mamas" to do a specific therapy technique for which we think will be very helpful to diminish his frequent outbursts. We also worked with a little girl, Karen, who had significant autism who was self-stimulating herself by pushing too hard on her closed eyes to receive input from the optic nerve. By taking a flashlight and creating significant healthy visual input she, for the first time, stopped the negative behavior and was holding a therapist’s hand instead. Our quote of the day in reference to the children of Amor del Nino, our second stop, is “These children our beautiful.”

The wheelchair team went to Marina Girola within Guatemala City. A majority of the children there already had wheelchairs and just needed some adjustments for better function. We spent a lot of time adding footrests to one child’s wheelchair, moving the power switches to an accessible location for another, or tweaking the position of headrests, laterals, and footrests. We were lucky to have a PT on our team who provided some great intervention to a couple of children who never have an opportunity to stand by placing them on a tilt stable and allowing them that input through standing that left them smiling and giggling with delight. We also helped a little girl, Cecilia, who was serenaded by the team with a robust rendition of “Cecilia” by Simon and Garfunkel and was so moved to hear her name in a song that she gave Georganna a kiss in appreciation. We worked fast in a short amount of time because our afternoon was being reserved for a trip to Amor de Nino/Love the Child to play and assess some of the children there. Our quote of the day is “Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart, you’re shakin’ my confidence daily, Oh Cecilia, I’m down on my knees, I’m beggin’ you please to come home…”

Our teams joined forces at Steve and Shyrel’s home in San Lucas where they have 58 children in their home whom have been abandoned or removed from their homes by the courts and are waiting for the process to either place them with stable family members or give them an adoptable status. There were different areas depending on the age of the child- 0-6 months, 7-12 months, 1-2.5 years, and so on. We all had some cuddle time with the little ones and refrained from placing any in our luggage! We offered some advice on a few children with special needs for increasing focus, redirecting negative behaviors, and providing various forms of stimulation. One success story in our brief interventions was Tanya, a girl with autism, who received many forms of proprioceptive input and given a weighted lap pad and for the first time sat still and engaged in an educational exercise for more than 20 minutes. We also fed, dressed, changed, and played with so many children who were smiling and laughing and enjoying every minute of attention. Overall, it was a great finish of our tour of the orphanages of Guatemala and a great example to us of the hard and rewarding work that Steve and Shyrel complete here in country and that we’ve been learning about all week in our interactions with them. You can visit http://www.lovethechild.org/AmorDelNino/Love_The_Child-Amor_Del_Nino-A_Childrens_Home_in_Guatemala.html to learn more about their amazing home.