2014 Annual Report

Submitted by

Kathy Bowler, Director

Children of Blessing Trust

Introduction

“Jesus said, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Mathew 19:14

What was new in 2014? What a great question!!!! So much has happened! We have registered over 1677 clients since we started in 2007, over 259 new clients in 2014 alone. Many new and exciting things have taken place this year. Take a look at just a few of them.

2 new Rehabilitation Technicians were hired. 2 new motorcycles were purchased. 2 new Rehabilitation Technicians were trained to use the motorcycle. This enabled us to open new Outreach Clinics in Mbabvi, Nambuma, Chitukula as well as a third clinic in Mchezi (Daeyang Luke Hospital, Kalulu Village and now Mchezi Boma) bringing the total number of Outreach Clinics to 11. Nambuma is the farthest away at 31 kilometres from our main site in Area 25. All of our Outreach clinics will run twice a week starting in January 2015 with Mchezi having 2 sites: Daeyang Luke Hospital and Mchezi Boma. It is very nice to see that most of the kids coming to the Outreach clinics are not also coming to the main centre. This means that the Outreach Clinics are working, taking therapy services to kids that would otherwise not get it!

Community Sensitization Trainings were carried out in 11 communities including all of the Outreach Communities. The 3 new communities of Nambuma, Chitukula and Mbabvi all received trainings on disability, the issues facing people with disabilities and HIV. Many new clients were found during these trainings. Then we joined forces with Fountain of Life and the Lilongwe One Stop Centre to provide training on Rape and Sexual Abuse for the people living in Mngwangwa, Lumbadzi, Kauma, Njewa, Mtandire, Area 25, Mgona and Mchezi. We had Fountain of Life Lay Counselors, a Nurse from the One Stop Centre and Police Officers from the Victim Support Unit explain what services they offer to people that have been raped or abused.

Free Wheelchairs Mission donated 10 New Wheelchairs to us through the Lilongwe Rotary Club. These are a new style of wheelchair made from plastic chairs. They were mainly given out to older kids or adults. The chairs were a blessing to so many. One wheelchair was given to a chief from Lumbadzi who attended the Community Sensitization Training on Rape and Sexual Abuse. He had a stroke earlier in the year and was not able to walk on his own any more. Another was given to a client we had initially seen in 2008. She had received a wheelchair donated to us from Trinity Church in Oshawa. The chair was very worn out and she came to see if we could help her get another one. Still another was given to the brother of one of our neighbours. The brother walked by our centre and saw the wheelchairs and came in to ask if one could be given to his brother who had a spinal chord injury and was no longer able to walk.

We were able to hire a Nurse this year. From September to December we had the opportunity to have a nurse on staff. This is something that we have wanted for many years. Chikondi was able to see the sick kids that come to our centre every day. Some she was able to treat, others were sent to one of the hospitals in Lilongwe for treatment. She was also able to attend specialist appointments with our kids helping them to get the care that they need. She was also a big help at the Epilepsy Clinic, liaising with the Lilongwe District Health Office, getting medication for us from them, counting pills in preparation for the Epilepsy Clinics and following up on appointments made during the clinic for CT scans and blood work. Sadly she left us at the end of the year to go back to work with the Ministry of Health. We are hopeful that we will be able to hire another nurse early in the New Year. We have one in mind. We are just waiting for the results of his entrance exams for the Nurses and Midwives Council of Malawi.

We were also able to secure funding for an Occupational Therapist this year. Sadly we have not yet been able to find one, as there are so few of them in Malawi! So if you know of an Occupational Therapist that wants to come over and help us please let us know! We were still able to provide occupational therapy services with the assessments being done by the director and therapy carried out by one of the Rehabilitation Technicians. At the start of the year Philomena was working in OT. Then once we received our 2 new Rehabilitation Technicians Shuppie worked in the Occupational Therapy program Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings while Harry worked there on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.

Maness, our Community Development Worker was able to work full time in her area of expertise this year. She coordinated all of the Community Sensitization Trainings, HIV/AIDS Testing and Counseling Community Visits, did countless home visits into the rural communities on a bicycle taxi and greatly expanded the Income-generating program. In the past we had a few moms and youth doing income-generating activities. However this year we received funding from Zoe Projects, US Ambassadors Small Grants Fund and a nurse from Scotland who had worked with us in the past, which enabled us to expand this vital program. Many of our families struggle to get even the basics of food and shelter. Many of them are single parent families, the job made even more difficult by the nature of the child’s disability. The gift of capital to start up a small business can be the start of self-sustainability for the family. So far we have started up businesses selling clothing, donuts and rice. In early 2015 we have even more moms poised and ready to start businesses selling cosmetics, beans, salt, soap and much, much more.

Bicycles: This year has been an awesome year for giving out bicycles. Bicycles for Humanity came on board and donated 15 bicycles. Lilongwe Roundtable donated 6 bicycles. CCP sponsorships provided 12 bicycles. The bicycles make it easier for the children to come from their homes to our main centre for therapy or to access specialized services like the Epilepsy Clinics and the Nutrition Program. They also assist some of the families to take a child to school or even to get to the Outreach Clinics for therapy. We have learned a lot from this experience. Francis, one of our staff members has become quite an expert in bicycle repair! When a child comes to Area 25 from Nambuma 3 times a week on their bike they travel almost 200 kilometres in a week. The wear and tear on the bikes is quite extreme especially since they are travelling on dirt roads that are definitely not smooth! Maness has also had to make many visits into the community to explain to the family that the bike belongs to the child and cannot be sold by the father or taken by the grandfather or even used as collateral for a loan! We are happy to report that we have managed in these cases to get the child’s bicycle back.

Tinashe came on board as part of our Administrative team. She was able to take over some of Mary’s responsibilities, such as data base management, inventory control and petty cash so that Mary can concentrate on our financial statements.

Audit: With Mary released from these time consuming duties we were able to go ahead and have the 2013 Financial Audit done. I am pleased to announce that we have passed the Audit. A few recommendations were made to help us do our record keeping even better. We hope to have monthly monitoring for the next year to keep us on track. We should be ready for the 2014 Audit very soon!

Thrive Malawi Board Members visited Children of Blessing Trust for the first time in October. It was great to have Stephen Eng, Chair of the Board as well as Vivien Berry, one of the board Members come and see in person what we are doing! They also brought with them, Joanne, a professional videographer to make some videos for Children of Blessing Trust and the Thrive website.

Lilongwe Roundtable sponsored the Colour Fun Run with the proceeds of the run going towards Children of Blessing Trust. It was a fun filled family oriented day. Children of Blessing Trust received a refrigerator, stove, 6 bicycles, 4 pairs of elbow crutches and lots of shoes.

Occupational Therapy Students from UBC came to Malawi for the first time this year. Yoyo and Luisa came for the month of February to learn what Occupational Therapy looks like in Malawi. They spent time at our Children’s Rehabilitation Program, Integrated Preschool and Special Education Program as well as at Sandi Rehabilitation Centre. This enabled them to see what grassroots therapy as well as private practice therapy looks like in Malawi. It was a successful partnership, which we hope will be repeated next year. We are also hoping to be able to host UBC Physiotherapy students as well.

Volunteers came from all over Canada and the USA to help us this year. Jason came and worked as a Rehabilitation Technician for 6 months leaving in April. Megan came in May to help us manage our data better. Kennedy came for the summer and worked as a Special Needs Teacher. Alison came as a physiotherapist for a few weeks in August. Then Herleen came in October for 4 months to work as a Rehabilitation Technician. We really appreciated all of their help and support!

2014 Highlights

School Sponsorships: 58 children were assisted to attend school. 7 children are attending Preschools in their home communities. 45 children are attending Primary School. 2 children are attending Secondary School. 9 of the Primary School children are attending the Mua School for the Deaf and 1 is attending the Malingunde School for the Blind.

Our Children’s Rehabilitation Program: Continued to teach children how to sit, roll, crawl, stand and walk. The children are divided into 2 groups: those who are learning to sit and those who are learning to walk. Our goal is to move them through the Children’s Rehabilitation Program as quickly as possible so that they can enter the Preschool and eventually get into Primary School. 264 children attended the Children’s Rehabilitation Program last year.

Integrated Preschool: Continued to provide quality Preschool Education to Children with disabilities and their able bodied peers. The children were divided into 2 groups. The first group is for children entering the preschool system and teaches the basics of shapes, colours, numbers, letters, puzzles, and colouring. The second group is for children preparing to start school and concentrates on school readiness activities such as printing, counting, simple math and much more. We had 3 Preschool Teachers, one for each class and one with a more flexible schedule available to pull out children in small groups to work on specific concepts. We also hired one of the moms with a child with a disability to be the Preschool helper. She prepares food for the children and supervises the Free Play room as well. 166 children attended the Preschool in 2014.

Special Education Program: Continued to offer a variety of programs this year including the Special Class, the Remedial Classes for Standards 1 to 4 and for Standards 5 to 8, the Hearing Impaired Program, the Visually Impaired Program and the Behaviour Challenge Program. 131 children were assisted through one or more of these programs. The Special Class prepares children to enter the School system whenever possible. The Remedial Classes assist children in school who need extra help. The Hearing Impaired Program teaches children who cannot hear using sign language. The Visually Impaired program works with both children who are blind and those who have low vision. The teacher comes twice a week and works with the children individually. One of our children is learning Braille. The others are learning how to cope with their limited vision. Some of the children are too old to attend school. These students are slotted in with the children who are working on the same skills as them. No one who wishes to learn is excluded!

Nutrition Program: Patricia came on board at the end of January to head up the Nutrition Program. She is a graduate from the University of Malawi. Chisomo stayed on as well to assist her, as the workload is quite high. The Nutrition Program is now regularly able to go out to all of the Outreach Clinics to assist the clients in their home communities. With the provision of porridge and chiponde, the fortified peanut butter paste, 15 children improved from moderately malnourished to mildly malnourished. After receiving porridge regularly another 7 children graduated out of the nutrition program no longer malnourished. 537 children were assessed and assisted through the Nutrition Program in 2014.