Help with Food
An important part of the Star of Hope's work is to improve the situation of children with special needs. We do this for example by giving support to daytime activities for children with these needs and parents' groups, including through transfer of knowledge from occupational therapists, physical therapists, special teachers and others to local authorities and health professionals.
The goal of this work is to improve the lives of children.
The inputs are: providing a place where they are treated with love, knowledge and respect, by teaching the United Nations rights. We also are introducing and teaching the changing attitudes to health professionals, politicians and society at large towards children with disabilities. The visual existence of these children has in the past in many places long been characterized by the notion that people with disabilities cannot contribute to society and therefore implied inferiority. Instead, they had been placed in institutions where they have not had any opportunity to develop as human beings and live full lives. They would never get out of bed, learn to walk, talk, feed themselves, and dress themselves. There was simply no time to give every child adequate care to children with special needs.
Stephen is a very happy and active boy that knows how to conquer any innocent heart with a smile. Every Wednesday, his parents bring him to an individual program of physical therapy at the Rehabilitation Center Regional Star of Hope, Iasi Romania.
Stephen was diagnosed with Downs syndrome at birth, but as common his parents were not guided as to what this diagnosis meant. Stephen´s parents came to our center when Stephen was just a few months old. Then, after the physical therapist evaluated him we established an individual program for Stephen and his parents were clearly taught with compassionate ideas and in detail about parenting a child with Downs’s syndrome and the importance of following a physical therapy program.
The results are visible, and all the parents are very pleased and excited about the physical therapy program in our center. Today Stephen is still doing better and his parents are better equipped to parent him.
