Archives: Progetti

DISABILITY IN THAILAND

In Thailand, the rights of disabled people have been recognized and discussed in the last 25 years, but their real needs are still unsolved and indefinite. The Ministry of Public Health, Education and Labor are responsible for disability services, however, the lack of cooperation and coordination among the offices, made it impossible to satisfy the needs of disabled people; and as a result, there is a limited or even absent improvement in their life standards. Another big obstacle in the Thai society is the belief that a disabled person is a dishonor for the family, a “curse” that won’t bring prosperity but that indicates a negative “fate”, a negative “Kharma”. The government institutes are crowded with children and adults who do not receive adequate care due to the lack of investments and qualified personnel. Disabled people are therefore hidden or marginalized, under the belief that they will never be capable of self-care or helpful to others.

The Camillian Home project was established based on the recognition that a well-structured integration program can help children and adults with disabilities improve their quality of life, as well as their physical, cognitive, emotional, and social abilities. The center is located in the outskirts of Bangkok and is one of the few in Thailand specifically dedicated to welcoming orphaned children with disabilities and providing day care programs for children who live in extremely poor conditions without any form of assistance. Every day, a shuttle service is available to take children from rural areas to the center.

Camillian Home currently supports 153 children with disabilities, including 28 residential children, 34 enrolled in the day care service, 40 receiving home-based assistance, and 51 monitored on a weekly or monthly basis. According to their individual needs, children have access to physiotherapy, speech therapy, and school support sessions. They also participate in recreational and manual activities (such as art therapy) that promote their physical and psychological development. Their health is continuously monitored by qualified nurses, who also educate them on proper personal hygiene practices. Main meals are provided by the center to all beneficiaries.

NEW PROJECTS

HAPPY FARM is an inclusive farm located 25 km from the Camillian Home, where a group of 8 children with disabilities visits about three times a month to take care of poultry and monitor crop cultivation. Although the farm’s production is still limited, it partially meets the center’s nutritional needs by providing healthy, 100% organic food. By the end of 2025, the project is expected to expand with the construction of small houses to accommodate two educators and a group of 6–8 center residents. Through agricultural education activities, they will be able to acquire new skills and build self-confidence, while developing a sense of responsibility and belonging that encourages active participation in social life. Meanwhile, a training center will promote a healthy lifestyle by providing users and their parents with the tools needed to achieve self-sufficiency in agricultural production and proper nutrition.

SOWING TO GROW
A smaller, yet equally important project in terms of education and rehabilitation, is taking shape on a previously unused plot of land within the Camillian Home compound. The main goal is to create new school gardens equipped with a greenhouse and an irrigation system that allow crops to grow year-round.  Through an informal learning approach, children and young people with disabilities involved in the project will acquire agricultural knowledge and skills. By either consuming the produce directly or selling it, they will also learn how to manage and distribute the proceeds, which will be used to support the center’s activities. This will establish a virtuous cycle that benefits everyone involved. The garden will focus on growing sweet basil, lemongrass, coriander, Thai parsley, chili, ginger, celery, tomatoes, peas, eggplants, and Chinese cabbage.

Disability is a real taboo in some African areas and has a heritage of prejudices and superstitions: the majority of the population still believe that a disabled child is a curse. For this reason, children are discriminated and locked in their houses or abandoned by their fathers who consider them useless and even for the rest of the household.

Centre Urugwiro, built in 2004 and since 2007 coordinated by an Italian lay missionary, is a day care centre, open from Monday to Friday, that hosts children, adolescents and adults with different disabilities, ensuring adequate healthcare in order to encourage their integration in the Rwandese society. The centre promotes welcoming and animation activities, games and sports, music therapy, physiotherapy and literacy, but also manual works such as gardening, woodworking, welding, tailoring, agriculture and farming. Moreover, it provides home visits for those who cannot reach the centre.

The physiotherapy service was started in 2014 to help vulnerable families with disabled children to access basic healthcare service, in order to improve the health conditions of the children and to living conditions of the whole family. The percentage of disabled people in this area is very high.  In 2019, ten children with physical anomalies or feet or deformities were welcomed in the centre, therefore it was necessary to buy orthotic and other expensive corrective devices. Lo spazio in cui si svolgeva la fisioterapia, inoltre, era diventato insufficiente per le esigenze dei pazienti, che non riuscivano a svolgere comodamente i vari esercizi di riabilitazione con i deambulatori. PRO.SA Foundation funded the expansion of the physiotherapy room equipped with a waiting room, which is very comfortable for the families waiting for their turn, who are offered breakfast every morning. At the same time children are provided with special toys to do rehabilitation exercises by playing. PRO.SA also supports the project “Step by step” which includes the purchase of orthotic devices to ensure a corrective therapy to the children of the centre who cannot walk without them.

Currently, Centre Urugwiro grants 58 disabled children of the area, the opportunity to be properly cured, to grow up healthy and to redeem themselves from cultural discriminations. Children-and-family care increases the general wellness of the entire household.

In Mozambique, as in other African countries, the level of cardiovascular diseases is strongly increasing. Rheumatic disease is one of the numerous and serious problems concerning public health. Its most common consequences are rheumatic carditis and tropical endomyocardial fibrosis. In tropical and subtropical endemic areas, rheumatic disease almost exclusively affects children and young adults. The heart damage is its worst consequence and it consists of a deforming alteration of the cardiac valves which can lead to their progressive disfunction, up to pulmonary hypertension and/or cardiac insufficiency. One of the main degenerative causes is malnutrition. Children affected by endomyocardial fibrosis, who risk their life, urgently need a surgical operation to live.

In Marrere, the Combonian Missionaries who manage the local hospital, are aware of the numerous cases of children affected by fibrosis thanks to Dr. Zobbi’s diagnosis, an Italian cardiologist who periodically flies to Mozambique as a volunteer. Unfortunately, the hospital of Marrere is not equipped with a cardiac surgery ward, therefore it is necessary to bring the children to the ICOR: Insituto do Coração de Santa Maria, the cardiological centre of Maputo.

Marrere is about two thousand kms from Maputo which is reachable only by plane. ICOR ensures free surgery and hospitalisation for poor children.

The project A journey for life offers a plane ticket to a child and a relative who accompanies him. Two round-trip tickets to Maputo cost around 600 Euros.

When the children are back to Marrere, they are followed by the Missionaries at the hospital cardiologic unit until they completely heal, and later, they take part into health and nutritional supporting programs.

Tabaka Mission Hospital takes its name from the village where it was built. It is located on hill, 5 km far from the asphalted road which links Kisii City with Tanzania.

It is a non-profit health organisation with 250 beds and many outpatient services. Every year, there are on average 9.000 inpatients, 1.300 of which in the pediatric ward. The hospital works in a rural area where the majority of people live below the national poverty line. People who cannot afford medical costs. The prices of the offered services are always reasonable to allow poor people to access them. For sick people who are not able to pay, the hospital set up the “Good Samaritan Fund” that covers the payments for hospitalization, surgical operations and treatments.  
The socio-economic situation is even more difficult because of the spreading of malaria, TBC and HIV-AIDS.  Malaria is still the first cause of death in Sub-Saharan Africa. The water supply of the region is not developed but water can be easily taken from rivers, wells and springs because of heavy rain.  Although the infant mortality rate is decreasing thanks to the campaigns promoted by Kenya Expanded Program on Immunization (KEPI), many children are still suffering from anemia, pneumonia, brain fever, measles and gastroenteritis which can lead to death if not properly treated.

In order to grant free healthcare to the children from 0 to 5 years old, the hospital started a project which provides paediatric health insurance: a solution which combats infant mortality.

More than 20 years ago, within the hospital, it was activated the St. Camillus Training School for Kenya Registered Community Health Nurses. A three-years-and-a-half diploma course in Nursing Sciences, with boarding. Every year an average of 15 girls are enrolled. The course consists of theory and practical lessons which take place in the hospital. The high-level of preparation of the students gave prestige to the school and many young women from different areas of the region, want to register. To make the course accessible for girls who come from poor families, the costs of the course are deliberately low. Five students are offered five scholarships every year.

In a healthcare system like the African one, that does not grant the right to health for everybody, St. Camillus Mission Hospital becomes paradigm of service for the poorest and the most vulnerable people of this region. When possible, patients are asked to give a contribution, even if it is not enough to cover the ordinary management of the facility. The hospital was opened in 1997. Now it has 150 beds and its activity is not limited to healthcare but also includes health and prevention education, with a particular focus on AIDS. It promotes meetings and workshops, and encouraging people affected or infected by AIDS to create solidarity groups. The hospital is located on the shores of the Lake Victoria, Nyanza region. This area is one of the poorest in the country and also one of the most affected by HIV/AIDS: around one third of the population is seropositive, especially women. Camillian missionaries have been working in Karungu for more than twenty years, they founded the St. Camillus Mission Hospital and they still manage it. Their main goal is to offer better healthcare to people in need, without distinction of faith or social condition. According to the statistics, the hospital serves around 250.000 inhabitants, more than 50% of which under 15 years old.  However, the local population needs more and more treatments and hospital admissions because of the high rate of opportunistic infections – due to immunodeficiency – and common diseases like malaria. In fact, it is more difficult to treat a seropositive patient since everything can quickly degenerate into something more serious. The combination of AIDS and Tuberculosis is very common, usually in severe form.

All the sick people have the right to be treated, get proper healthcare and be respected. This approach is even more needed when it deals with AIDS innocent victims. Mothers and children but also men are often victims of imposed situations or traditions. The hospital tries to offer a cure, to provide in-patients with healthcare, food and everything they need, in a context of attention and respect, in order to grant healthcare to those who need it, focusing on the most vulnerable population groups.

Around 30% of the urban area of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is made of marginal neighborhoods originated from the settlement of internal migrants coming from the country’s rural areas. These neighborhoods do not provide all basic services. Family mothers usually do housework and look after their children, while fathers work as builders in the housing sector. Men are widely considered to be superior to women and this often causes domestic violence and abuse. Such phenomena come from the lack of education, usually related to the absence of capacity for initiative and accountability.

As far as terminal diseases and palliative care are concerned, there is no national legislation that defends the right to a dignified death. Children and teenagers are not appropriately assisted in terms of oncological treatments nor of palliative care. Supporting these age groups during the illness is a priority to the San Camillo Hospital, which engages in offering children and their families a welcoming environment and human and professional effectiveness that could meet the needs of anyone in a terminal condition.

The “Fundación Ecuatoriana de Cuidados Paliativos FECUPAL” is a Non-Profit Organisation pioneer in the care of terminal patients and their families. FECUPAL was established by Camillias and since 2014 has been running the Hospice San Camillo, a residential unit for palliative care to terminally ill patients. Those who live here together share the same issues and can support each other through mutual help in order to face the disease and the palliative care in the best way. PRO.SA Foundation supports the activities of the paediatric unit that targets children and young people. Palliative care is provided at the specialised centre or door-to-door, focusing on specific child and teen needs and trying to involve families in the process.

The Redemptoris Mater Hospital is located on the Ashotsk plateau at 2.000 metres above sea level. It was built in 1991 by the Italian Caritas and donated to the Armenian population by Pope John Paul II. The Hospital has been run since by Camillians. It offers 100 beds and it is at the core of a health care system that covers 22 villages with associated clinics.  The sanitary district is about 15.000 inhabitants. Patients come from the nearby Georgia and Armenia. There are 4 departments in the Hospital: the medicine, surgery, maternity and pediatrics units. A pediatrician has been hired to provide health care in the villages only. In its first years, several Italian doctors have been visiting the Hospital to hold refresher courses for the medical staff working there.

According to the paid national health care system in Armenia, 61% of medical expenses on average should be borne by patients and those who cannot pay are not provided with care. Two thirds of the population do not have hospitalisation coverage and there are no benefits relating to the purchase of drugs, except those against tuberculosis, malaria or HIV/AIDS. This often makes essential health care inaccessible for a large section of the population, blocking treatments and increasing health issues otherwise manageable.

As long as direct payments are so expensive, sanitary assistance will remain inaccessible for some parts of the population, causing inequalities and increasing social injustice further.

At the Redemptoris Mater Hospital health care is guaranteed to all those need it. Only those who can afford it are requested a contribution to the cost through the payment of a ticket. External clinical activities and first aid services are totally free. Knowing the real situation of poverty and implementing health and nutritional programs is made possible by these clinical services.

PRO.SA Foundation collects and purchases drugs, past, rice, oil and other essential goods in Italy and send them to Armenia via container.