2024 has been a brilliant year for the Children of Sumatra. One of our most precious children managed to eventually get out of Indonesia to get an operation that he so deserved in one of the most amazing cleft specialist centres in Taiwan. We are so thankful to the Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation, Prof Lo and all the teams of doctors and nurses that made this special moment happen.
Later on in the year, we were lucky enough to join the teams from Taiwan for one of their cleft projects on a remote island in Indonesia. It was a pleasure to work with such dedicated teams and we really hope we can collaborate together more in the future.
We also helped with the clubfoot project that took place at the Harapan Jaya rehabilitation centre. Driving around remote areas searching for children who can benefit from operations is our speciality, and we always find so many children in desperate need of help.
With help from our donors, we’ve been able to build a house for three orphaned teenagers. In desperate poverty ever since the death of their father years ago, their old bamboo house was falling apart and on the verge of collapse. Their mother was suffering from extreme depression as she struggled to make ends meet. Sadly she died this year in the most tragic of circumstances, leaving the three girls to fend for themselves. Already aware of this family’s awful situation, the passing of their mother prompted us to act very quickly. Within a matter of weeks the girls had a new house. We also provided furniture – so for the first time in their lives these young ladies have their own proper beds to sleep in. Thank you so much to everyone who helped make this fairy tale come true for these beautiful young women.
Our year’s work completed with our cleft lip and palate project. We are proud to announce that more than thirty children have received life changing operations for their cleft lip and palate deformities. So many amazing smiles have once again come to life.
Please follow us on Instagram and Facebook, we are very active with our social media posts and you can see lots of great videos and photos about our ongoing projects, including the stories above. We send our heartfelt thanks to all our sponsors for all of your generous donations this year. Our work would not be possible without your tremendous kindness year after year. Special thanks too to our amazing volunteers, local workers and the many teams of medical specialists that helped to make 2024 such a special year.
With much appreciation and festive good wishes from all of us here on the Children of Sumatra team.
