My personal objective in going back to Shepherd's Field Children's Village this August was to assess the needs that Noel (the 6 year-old girl I fell in love with during my January's visit) might have, an how I could possibly meet them.
After my January visit, I had thought Noel would do better growing up at SFCV due to her visible handicaps (she has Cerebral Palsy with Spasms and the only limb that functioned "more normally" is her right hand, which is at about a 80% functioning capacity presently), fearing that she'd be discriminated against in the States. However, as I got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with her during this trip playing various games to help her with gross motor skills, I saw the precipitous improvements she had made: she was able to use her BOTH hands to grab the Sippy cup, to take a sip of water, swallow, put it down to take a break and pick it up to repeat the movements again (she wasn't able to drink water on her own previously, and water would spill all over her when she did drink); she was eager to mimic my movements when we played Go Fish and Whack a Mole. Noel used her left hand to hold on to the magic marker while using her right hand to pull open and then to close the cap repeatedly. She enjoyed stamping and using her fingers to use the stamp pad to play. She loved getting all messy with the paint and water we worked/played with. Noel picked up American Sign Language I taught her and was able to put them into practice right away! She would cooperate to sit cross-legged instead of he "W" which was the easy way out, but very unhelpful for her long term mobility. Noel made improvements even during the one week we spent together in this area: at first, she'd lose her balance when sitting cross-legged on he floor, she was able to sit cross-legged without falling backwards by the last morning we were together. Xian Chang, the physical therapist on our team, was able to get Noel to stand, albeit, while holding on to a stand. This is amazing, as Noel ha always gotten around crawling, using her right hand, pulling herself across the floor or up the stairs or sliding down the steps on her tummy (you can see the bruises on her torso from this activity).
As a matter of fact, Noel had made such alarming improvements during my first one-on-one session with her, my usual suspicious mind thought maybe she wasn't handicapped and she was pulling my leg playing handicap! She was amazing!
Observing her interaction with her peers though, I realized that she was a "Wall Flower," unable to compete with other kids who had less physical disability or were stronger than her - she is tiny, and with only one functional hand, she did not stand a chance fending for herself, nor able to get to visitors fast enough to get attention. So, she'd stay away from the fray of the kids gathering around visitors and ends up helping her peers in their building of Lego blocks (by handing the blocks to them) - I've observed her ability to build Lego structures during my January visit (when I fought off her peers who were trying to grab her blocks).
I saw that with the little amount of one-on-one attention, Noel was able to thrive and blossom so much, that there's actually such GREAT potential for her to improve her functionality.
I have come to the conclusion that Noel needs to be adopted so she can have the one-on-one attention, encouragement and continue to thrive and EXCEL!
Since my husband, Alan, had also fallen on love with Noel, and since we are wonderful auntie and uncle, not full-time parents, our prayer is that another family would fall in love with Noel and adopt her, but that family would be close to us so we can help take care of her every week...
~ Elissa
