Hello everybody,
I hope you’re doing well. This is Micha and I’m back for the last article of the year. As you may have seen on our various social medias, we celebrated our organization’s second anniversary on November 22 at the Montreal Africa House.
This event was an opportunity to show the various actions taken this year to our family and members. All this around a good buffet that I would like to thank Les Moulins Lafayette and our friend Julie for the cake. Nevertheless, let’s get back to the point and look back over all the actions taken this year and thank all the good stars that have scattered our path of light and without whom, all this would not have been possible.
Sometimes help comes from a stranger and we have been able to experience this twice this year: the first is Navaldeep Kaur. Aside from Maryam, none of us know or have ever met her, but this young woman has organized a fundraiser for Chance on her own initiative with the Sikh Association at her university. The second, Juvian Pinzon, is a friend of Cynthia’s family. Every year he organizes a football tournament and this year he wanted to organize it to pay the profits to Chance. It was in his heart to help us. Sometimes I pinch myself to realize that what they did for us was real. Nalvaldeep and Juvian both taught me the true meaning of bounty.
A big thank you to the artists who were present for Art for Life as well as Laura and the zumba teachers for Zumbaton, you are the best!
Not to mention our families, friends and volunteers who are always loyal to the station. Thank you for being here and helping us, which allows us to move forward.
This year, thanks to the efforts of everyone, we were able to raise about $19,000. This money allowed us to purchase two Cpaps (respirators) as well as the equipment needed to open the unit (scales, thermometers, etc.) and 50 admission kits to support sick newborns when they arrive on the unit. This relieves families of a financial cost. We were also able to buy the support materials for education and ensure the first training trip. You can find the film of this trip which traces all our preparation as well as our actions on the spot via this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VJmO9AvFBk&t=36s
2019 marked our return to Kinshasa, in fact we carried out several actions there in addition to the first training trip. It was unique because for almost a year and a half the focus was on grant research and fundraising activities. So let’s return to the scene for the part that reminded me of the essence of Chance, a particular story struck me the reminder
A 19-year-old woman came to the KKH hearing that we were there. Two months earlier, she had given birth to a little girl who had no eyeballs, no money to go to a hospital, to have her infant examined, and remained at home. It was her second child, the first one had died a year ago a few days after her birth of an unclear cause. Dr Beaumier took the time to examine her baby and confirmed the absence of eyeballs and other malformations. He explained to her that she had contracted a virus during her pregnancy (which she did not follow because of lack of money) which would explain these malformations in the baby, but it was necessary to do further tests. I looked at this young girl and I could read the despair on her face and a feeling of injustice filled my heart…
She was unable to follow her pregnancy for lack of means, and when her baby was born, again, she was unable to have him followed by a doctor for the same reasons. That was Chance’s goal, to allow each of these women to follow their pregnancies in the best conditions without worrying about the financial factor, to prevent situations like his own from happening again
The return on site also reminded us of the motivation of the KKH team for this project. I can see their excitement when we released the Cpap to start the practices. It was magic and worth all the efforts made to get there. Thanks to the support of our loved ones, we were able to give a smile to more than forty moms with the gift basket operation, which contained everything necessary for the care of newborns. We were also able to help about 20 families with their hospital expenses, which allowed them to return home.
This year has been full of rebounds. When the neonatal project at KKH was launched, it was decided that it was up to the HKK to cover the costs of renovating the buildings to accommodate the future neonatal unit. The problem was that the cost of refurbishing the buildings exceeded the estimates and that the HKK alone could not bear such an amount… Before being a public hospital the HKK was a dispensary that depended on a religious community with which it maintained ties. Following the training session, I went to the province of Bas-Congo to meet with the head of this religious community and told him about our project to draw his attention to help to carry out the work. And you know what?! It was a winning bet, he made a substantial donation to the HKK to cover the work that could have started.
The coming year is more than decisive for us. After two years we are finally eligible for some grants. This would allow us to ensure the purchase of the big equipment (incubators, phototherapy, etc.) and hope for an opening of the neonatal unit at KKH in 2020. We also have plans to expand our network in Kinshasa and, among other things to work with their university clinics, providing training support as well as equipment. The goal is always to provide the best possible care for sick newborns. As an international cooperation agency this year we’ll be moving into another phase— But while looking at the progress we have made so far we remain positive and remember that we started with nothing, just our desire to make a real difference.
I would end this article by repeating the phrase of Martin Luther King: To have faith is to climb the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
And we have faith in Chance.
Once again, thank you all for your support. If you liked the article, feel free to share it.
It was Micha to serve you today.
