The year 2024 has been full of significant actions for FFF in three of its five areas of action:
– TRAINING
– AWARENESS
– COOPERATION
And we have raised a total of
COOPERATION:
We began 2024 with three actions in southern Chad.
Team: Dr. Marc Garcia-Elias/Dr. Djilouba Beninga/Fina Sensada
Airline tickets: 7,500 euros (€4,472 of which was paid by crowdfunding). Remaining tickets, transportation, and subsistence paid by Dr. Marc Garcia-Elias (€10,000)
1) Manufacture, transport, and placement of new prostheses manufactured in Dakar, to be placed on Chanceline’s leg in Moundou (€6,400 paid by private financing)
2) Purchase of an ox for Chanceline’s family to facilitate the transport of water from the well to their village (€1,000 paid by private financing).
3) Trip to Mberi- exploration of the area to be aided with Sister Bashanta, school principal for 3,003 children. “Water for Mberi” project: drilling a well to supply water to a school for 300 children in Mberi, southern Chad. (Project pending on standby).
4) Exploratory trip and field consultation in the villages of the southern part of the country and meeting with Sister Mabel at the Doba Center for the Disabled with a proposal- a base camp for the first surgical expedition.
5) From this trip emerged the “Stand-up a Child” project- FFF’s First Surgical Expedition in Doba to operate on 25 children with a team of surgeons and anesthesiologists entirely from Chad, purchasing expendables and medications locally.
With this project, we will fulfill our main objective:
To train local surgeons in life-saving surgery, so that they can operate in areas of need and be the ones who go to their villages to provide consultations and find solutions to the mobility problems of the hands and feet of children from families living in extreme poverty, without means of transportation, far from everyone and everything.
TRAINING:
A total of 45 surgeons from different French-speaking African countries participated.
We offered the following webinar courses:
-Dr. Garcia-Elias continued coordinating and teaching the followingcourses: “How We Move Our Fingers” and “Why Do My Hands Hurt.”
– Dr. Kaelin, from Geneva (Switzerland), a world expert in the treatment of poliomyelitis and its after-effects, taught the course “Surgical Approach to Children with Polio.
FFF is committed to TRAINING, so that all African surgeons are familiar with life-saving surgery and have the training, advice, necessary tools, and financial resources to solve the problems of disabled children in their villages with medications, expendables, and surgical materials from their native countries.
March 2024
Dr. Djilouba Beninga, the Foundation’s special collaborator in Dakar, confirmed that six surgeons and two anesthesiologists from Chad would like to collaborate on FFF’s surgical missions in his country.
Through them, we obtained detailed estimates of the actual costs for medications, expendables, transportation, food, and lodging in Chad, resulting in a budget of €1,000 per child.
We prepared the “Stand-up-a-child” project dossier to seek funding and prepared a promotional video.
We entered Hewlett Packard’s “HP Charity Journey” competition in Sant Cugat, Spain where each year, 2,500 employees choose collaborative projects. In June, the project was presented to the HP jury, and in July, we were notified that we won First Prize, comprising 75% of the budget. We collected our prize (check) in October2024.
AWARENESS TRAINING
MARBLES GAME DESIGN:
HD Charity designed a 3D game board for FFF to play the traditional marbles game which is our Foundation’s symbolic game. This is a game that helps children’s vision, which is so strained by today’s use of tablets, cellphones, and computers. We tried out our first game at HD’sfacilities with their employees’ children, followed by the Scout group “El Cau” from Navás which was a success.
CONFERENCE: “Getting a Child Back on Their Feet”
A total of 950 children between the ages of 4 and 17 from different educational centers in Catalonia attended with a positive response fromboth teachers and students.
EXCHANGES BETWEEN CHILDREN FROM DIFFERENT CONTINENTS
Drawings, puzzles, and other creative activities were created at the Institut Sant Jordi de Navas to be exchanged with the children we will be operating on in southern Chad. Drawings by children who have undergone surgery in Chad for the children of Navas.
FFF PROJECTS PRESENTATION
FFF’s projects were preented in three towns in Catalonia: Esterri d’Àneu, Ponts, and Navás. At the national level, we presented the FFF action plan in Granada; At the international level, in Quito (Ecuador) and Rotterdam (Netherlands).
The Foundation establishes a headquarters in Sitges and is officially launched.
FFF SITGES HEADQUARTERS VIDEO is prepared and launched.
COLLABORATORS:
Consell Cultural de les Valls d’Àneu, Dansàneu. Percentage of ticket sales for the Dansaneu opening of the show “Biterna” by IT Dansa de Barcelona donated to FFF.
Pedro Burruezo & Camerata. Concert in the Romanesque church of Sant Joan de Isil (Lleida). Cultural centers for dance, theater, and music, and the Navàs hiking center singing, dancing, and walking to help a child stand up.
INTERNATIONAL COLLBORATION
On September 12th, Fernando’s birthday, Mawj’s son, who will be named Fernando, is born. We will resume the project to operate on/recuperateMawj’s elbow next year, when the baby is a year old or older (2025/2026).
The third week of December, Dr. Marc Garcia Elias and Fina Sensada traveled to Senegal to teach a surgical approach course to young trauma surgeons at Rufisque Hospital. They also met with Dr. Djilouba, the expedition leader, and his colleague Dr. Alfred to prepare for the first surgical mission to Chad. Fina begins the documentary “Flowers and Butterflies” following the expedition.
We ended the year with €25,100 of the planned budget of €25,000.
75% was donated by HP Charity Journey and 25% was by private donations.