This is Charlotte. She is 21 years old and is about 4 feet tall. Most days are the same for Charlotte. She wakes up and goes to spend her day in the room across the hall. In this room, she’ll eat her meals, go to the bathroom, and just sit. She spends long parts of the day sitting on a bucket or children’s portable potty, because her bladder has never learned how to hold in her pee. She cannot speak, but she can make sounds and she can also hear what is being said around her. Sometimes she seems to comprehend what is being said, but at other times she seems not to. Walking is also a daily struggle for her. She is unable to fully use her knees, so she needs support while walking. When we come to visit she greatly enjoys someone helping her to take a walk outside of the room.When taking a look into Charlotte’s eyes, you can tell there is a world going on in there. It makes one wonder at what her thoughts might be. She sometimes laughs at her reflection in the mirror and has a look of dismay when the children in the room make a mess. If she could speak, what would she say? How much is she aware of? How much does she understand? She is often overlooked. Being 21 in a room filled with children much younger than herself, she tends to be one of the last people noticed in the room. She loves any opportunity to get a breath of fresh air. When I first started coming to the orphanage, one of the members of our team (sometimes me, sometimes others), would help her walk around the facilities and a little outside. She would get the biggest smile on her face to just be out of that room! Over the past couple of months, we have begun helping her use a walker. There was a walker already available for her, but the nannies hadn’t taken it out because they said she had not shown much interest in it before. We discovered this was due to her lack of training on how to use the walker. Within the first attempt of teaching her how to use it, she was able to go down the halls! She had difficulty going straight and turning where she wanted, but after only a few more tries she had it! She has begun being able to lower herself down to the toilet and is working on getting up on her own. There is a small ramp to go outside. At the moment, this ramp is a bit scary for her, but her motivation to enjoy the outdoors has pushed her to try. We are helping her work on ways to get up and down in a way that is comfortable for her. Her smile is now even bigger, when we come to visit! We are hoping the nannies will continue to help her use the walker when we are not there. The ability to just go where she wants, is such a big gift for her. The part of her story that is the hardest for me is to think, how could her life have been different if she had had intervention at a younger age? Would she be able to speak? Would she be able to walk unassisted? Would she be able to feed herself and not spend hours upon hours on the toilet? These are questions that we will never know the answer to. Unfortunately, we cannot go back in time. Our hope is to continue to help her grow in independence. All we can do at this point is help her quality of life to greatly increase. There are many children we serve in this orphanage who need intervention. People to come in to spend time helping them grow in communication skills, play, fine motor skills, and many other areas. The earlier a child can receive intervention the better their lives will be. They will have more opportunities for a life of their choosing. They will be better understood by those around them, especially the nannies that work with them every day. With such high ratios of children to nanny, the nannies are not able to provide this high level of care. They are doing what they can to take care of each child’s physical needs. These children are surviving not thriving. Charlotte has been left in a state of survival. Hope Station’s heart is to see these precious ones receive the care they need to thrive. Our goal is to help these nannies find ways to provide for these children’s needs in all areas. They are the ones that can be daily champions for each child in the orphanage.
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Stephanie (Rommen) Li"Every child needs to be loved in gigantic quantities and with unbelievable quality." Archives
December 2018
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