GLO raised $2,000 specifically to fund Christine’s extensive treatment. Then we had to address how to fund the long term care Christine would need. Christine’s grandmother, Elizabeth, proposed a unique solution.  She asked us to help her buy a few chickens. Elizabeth explained that she wanted to help pay for Christine's medical care herself, and that by selling eggs, she could earn the money to do that. We were excited that Elizabeth took the initiative to start a chicken project that would help support her granddaughter.

 

Christine was taken to CORSU, a hospital in the capital city, Kampala, that specializes in rehabilitation for conditions like Christine’s. After four months of intensive rehabilitation at the hospital, they determined that she needed to come back every couple months to be checked up on and to be given some further rehabilitation to help her with her movement and her speech.

 

Since her first visit and all the others since, Christine has learned to communicate using sign language, received some education, and the wounds on her backside have healed completely thanks to the doctors at the hospital and her grandmothers constant care at home.

 

Within months, Christine’s condition improved dramatically. She is bright, happy child, who can hear, is learning to communicate through sign language, gaining independence with a wheel chair of her own, and even starting to use a walker.  She still has a long way to go physically. But she has already transformed from a child who wept constantly due to chronic pain, into a girl who always has a smile on her face.

 

She brings hope and tremendous joy to all the lives she touches – in her village, at the hospital, and especially to all of us at GLO.