It has been a fantastic year for the Children of Sumatra charity; we helped 70 children born with cleft deformities, experience transformational surgery with life changing results. We had two fantastic teams of volunteers who made this difficult feat a reality. In our search for the children needing our help this year, we travelled a vast number of kilometers around the island of Sumatra and as always we found shocking numbers of children in every area that we searched.
With large numbers of children already waiting to receive surgery next year, many too young or too sick to undergo surgery in 2016, we are now in the process of developing a new project in April next year in another city in Sumatra. Thanks to a collaboration with American volunteer surgeons, this new project will enable us to provide surgery and care for more complex examples of cleft deformity and will also specialise in correcting teeth and jaw problems. This fantastic opportunity will give us the chance to schedule surgery twice every year and will enable us to help more children.
Amongst this year’s best achievements for our charity was being able to provide help for a young lady named Nurul. We have been trying to arrange surgery for her for the last 8 years but unfortunately her family would never agree. This year she turned 18 and, making the decision herself, she came to ask for our help. Her cleft was an extremely difficult operation but thanks to an amazing Dutch surgeon, whom we have worked with for years, she is now over the moon with her results (pictured above).
We never give up on a child and sometimes it can take many years to give them the chance they deserve. Seeing just how simple it is to change a life, it really is so important to us to be able to help more people like Nurul.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
