What is “For the Children”?
“For the Children” is an initative that aims at bringing medical aid to children-in-need in the Third World. At the moment, we are trying to realize these goals in Nicaragua. Of particular concern is the Burn Unit of the children’s hospital, Valez Paiz-Minsa, in Managua where medicine, particularly antibiotics, but also vitamins and other nutritional sources are urgently needed. Also lacking are critical medical instruments and supplies, as well as toys for these young patients. Hospital It is our primary task to collect donations for the buying and shipping of these necessities. However, through this website, we also seek to inform the public about the challenging living conditions that face Third World children in general. We therefore ask for your help to better these conditions. “For the children” is a non-for-profit, school-based initiative that forewards all proceeds to the project’s target populations.
Why do we do this ?
For all those participating in “For the Children”, the project is carried out alongside our regularly scheduled class lessons. We volunteer our time not for the aim of getting better grades, but because we truly want to help children of the Third World. If you too would like to help, then please support our project in any way that you can: by donating money or supplies, transporting care packages to Nicaragua, or simply by publicizing “For the Children”. The mayor of Bremen’s wife, Mrs. Luise Scherf - who has had extensive experience both living and working in Nicaragua - will personally assure that all donations reach their destination. Indeed, it is to Mrs. Scherf that we are indebted for having delivered the very first packet of medical supplies to Managua’s Clinic on behalf of “For the Children”!
How did we hit on that? How did we originally arrive at this project idea? February 4, 2004 marked the starting point of our project: it was on this day that our school was honoured the title, “School without Racism - School with Courage”. A 13th grade, advanced level sociology class and their teacher, Mr. Dieter Mazur, achieved this goal after three years of hard work.
Now we, the 12th grade class, also wanted to start a meaningful project of our own. Our ideas first turned to the general living conditions of the Third World. We then came across some photographs of a young boy in Nicaragua named Cesár, who had suffered an accident that left much of his body burned. Our teacher, Mrs. Marianne Papke told us about her twin sister, Gisela Chrisman, who works as a nurse and clinical coordinator in the USA. Gisela had been a volunteer in the project „Operation Smile“, which is an American initiative that delivers medical assistance to Third World countries. The project brought Gisela to work in a hospital in Velez Paiz - Minsa in Nicaragua, where she first met the drastically burned Cesár. Moved as she was from his suffering, Gisela later recounted Cesár’s tale to her sister here in Germany.
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2009 WE GET HIS OWN WRITTEN STORY:
Managua - Nicaragua 18th February, 2009
My name is Cesar Andres Estrada Flores.
In 2003, my mother opened up a gunpowder and fireworks shop in the market (the market I think is called Ivan Montenegro). In December I helped her sell gunpowder and fireworks.
At the end of the month, all of the gunpowder and fireworks vendors went home to rest. This occurred on the 1st of January. Also on this day, my mother brought all of the gunpowder and fireworks stock from our market stall to my house because there was no place to safely store them otherwise.
The next day, the 2nd of January, my grandmother who had spent the past month of December in our house (taking care of it) left for her own home. My mother gave her some gifts, provisions, clothes and other things. My grandmother had a lot to carry! I asked my mother if I could go with my grandmother and she said yes. So I went to stay at my grandmother's house. Then I went to the house of my older sister and helped her clean it. Then, around 2pm, I left to go home on the bus and pretended to sleep. However I didn't really sleep on the bus.
I arrived safely back at my house. My brother was the only one in the house besides me when I arrived home. I left my house and went to the house of my friend who lives in the house next to me. Two more friends arrived shortly after and we played Nintendo for 2 hours. Then at 6pm I went back to my house and I went to bed.
At around 7pm my mother woke me up and we ate dinner but I wasn't really hungry. I went to the vendor nearby and bought a soda and my friends were at the shop. They called out to me and told me that we should play Nintendo but I told them no because I was tired. I went back home and slept on the bed that was directly next to the gunpowder/fireworks we had decided to store at home.
Around 10pm my sister came into the room where I was sleeping to bring me a sheet but she didn't see me. She said she saw a spark in the gunpowder and fireworks and quickly left the house with my brothers and mother.
I got up thinking it was a dream and looked for a way out but I couldn't find one. I covered my face with my hands. My friend, with whom I had played Nintendo, found me and took my by the hand and got me out. I went, whilst conscious of everything going on around me, to look for a taxi and they took me to the German Hospital. There they cut off my clothes. I remained conscious and was transferred to Hospital Fernando Velepais where I was put under anesthesia and slept. I can't remember anything until I woke up 5 or 6 days later. I was in a coma. When I saw myself in the bed all bandaged, I asked the nurse what had happened to me and she answered that I had been burned and my burns were serious.
As the days passed, I suffered the constant, and unnecessarily vigorous, cleaning of my wounds that I was subjected to. They called my mother and the doctor told us that they needed to cut off my fingers from my left hand or else I might lose my whole hand.
After this they took me to the operating room and grafted the first layer of skin from my legs to help my burns. It was so painful and all of this happened whilst I was in the intensive care unit (ICU). On January 28th, I was transferred from there to the burns unit which was, for me, the most painful experience.
My skin grafts were bathed very vigorously in a tin full of water and the physical therapy was painful. It left my body immovable. For almost a month I would be in a bed where I would sit, bend my arms and try to walk around. It was very painful. But fortunately during this time I met a person that offered me love, support and who does more today because she is a bridge to help us all. Those who suffer from burns suffer less now.
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After seeing Cesár’s picture, we wanted to help Cesar at once, but how? How should one best begin such an endeavour? Through a series of fortunate coincidences, things moved relatively quickly and we got started! Our first goal was to purchase for Cesár’s clinic a medical instrument called “Dermatom”, which treats burn victims by removing scabs and scar tissue from wounds so that new skin may grow quickly and less painfully. After helping Cesár, we began to think about how we might also help the rest of the hospital in Velez Paiz - Minsa. Therefore, we began to collect additional donations. In the period of working on this project, we won 2 rewards. The "Gertrude Cox Award" and the main reward in the competition of the federal state Bremen "Dem hass keine Chance!" Now, in May 2005, we are approaching our final school exams and have passed the project on to our successors, the current 11th grade Sociology class and their teacher, Mr. Dieter Mazur. We wish them great success in advancing this work.
Finally many pupils of the classes of Mrs. Marianne Papke followed in the next years.
All new informations between 2005 and 2009 about our projekt you can read under "news"