As you may have recently read, baby Hope has been suffering from an unexplained illness for quite some months now. Hope benefited from our 'Five Baby Challenge' last summer upon her arrival at the orphanage which, with your help and support, enabled us to fund one-to-one care for her to ensure she gained weight and strength to get her off to the best start during a very vulnerable stage in her life. However, there have been ongoing problems with her health, which we still cannot definitively explain or begin to fix. You may remember that young, beautiful Hope was fighting for her life. After several weeks in the Lutheran referral hospital in Arusha, she was believed to be on the mend. However, after just a few days back at the orphanage, she had to be rushed to a larger hospital in Moshi with a high fever.
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| Precious little Hope last year, not too long after her arrival at Nkoaranga Orphanage |
Over the past few years, The Small Things and our partners have been able to vastly improve the living conditions, daily care, and survival chances of the beautiful kids at Nkoaranga Orphanage, thanks to your support. Hope's health problems are still a mystery unsolved. Therefore, we would like to ask for your help again in raising money for Project Riziki.
The current situation:
Last week, Hope was admitted into hospital again with a fever, with the source still unknown. Nobody in Tanzania, so far, seems to be able to figure out exactly what is going on with poor Hope. She is now out of the hospital and back at the orphanage and doing well with Mama Fanueli; but this is almost certainly not the last of her problems. We want to do everything we can to ensure Hope is in full health and not having to suffer from these continuous fevers and chest infections any longer.
We have recently found out about a clinic in Hai which can perform some tests that we thought would require travel to Kenya, which is thrilling!
Why we need your help:
In order to bring Hope to the center, we would need to ask Mama Fanueli to accompany us so that we can get Hope back to Nkoaranga the same day. If the consultation for Hope in Hai is unsuccessful in finding out the source of these ongoing problems, we will need to take her to Nairobi, Kenya as soon as possible. That would mean getting an emergency travel document through immigration to bring her to Kenya, which is a very complicated and costly prospect.
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| Hope, still tiny but growing. |
With the memory of the losses of our little boy, Riziki in 2011 and our little girl, Rehema in 2012 in mind, we now ask for your help and support in our attempt to give our kids the best possible medical care they can receive here in Tanzania when circumstances require. We don't want to remain in the position of having to scramble for funds each time medical needs occur, as we have in the past. We have instead sought to create a standing fund - 'Project Riziki' - for hospital bills as well as any necessary transport, food, and overtime for Mamas accompanying the child, in memory of our little angels Riziki and Rehema, so that money will not be an obstacle to a child receiving the best care available.
Therefore, any donations that you are able to make towards Project Riziki would be extremely helpful. Not knowing what exactly Hope is suffering from means that we do not know what the future holds for her. We absolutely do not want to lose her, and that is why we plan to do everything we can. Just a few months ago she was still so weak and small. She has continued to put up a strong fight, and has now gained weight and is active, but we cannot predict the future without knowing the full picture.
Thank you for anything you are able to give. Whether it is $1, $10 or £10, every dollar or pound will go a long way and will contribute to potentially saving the life of our little girl Hope.
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