Why the quietness?...

Well... as many of you will know, earlier this year I got engaged to the lovely Rob. Deciding there was no need to hang about we got planning our wedding in 5 months or so then had the most amazing day of our lives on 2nd October 2010
and married life since has been no disappointment!

Since many of you supporters know me personally I thought you might like to see some pictures....

However life has also gone on in Sierra Leone. Still doing at least a day a weeks voluntary work for ETC there certainly seems to be more than enough to keep me busy with PR, fundraising, meetings, answering enquiries and encouraging and advising the ETC field team.

Sarah Withers (ETC Occupational Therapist) was back for some leave over the British summer which left Abu doing home visits to our families to keep them all going in one way or another. However being rainy season in SL, it is a struggle to get anywhere - public transport often grinds to a halt because everywhere is flooded, climbing steep hillsides to our families homes often become too dangerous to pass, and sadly some of our patietns who are weak and vulnerable anyway get seriously sick. Still Abu does what he can.

Plans for ETC's next season are well under way. Sarah Arbery is the new member to join the ETC team. She is a British A+E nurse about to start her full training early next year. Sarah will work in SL from Oct-Christmas assisting Abu with home visits and mentoring him further with his computer skills. She will also help to set up the new group sessions of theraplay that we are hoping to start as soon as Sarah W returns as well.

So, plans continue to grow and develop... soon you will hear about this all becoming reality.

Since I am no longer living in SL, do bear with us in getting news from there, sometimes computer problems or electricity failures or pure exhaustion mean that it can take time for the team to update us here in the UK.

Be be assured, the work goes on, the children are improving and the workers are sure working hard!

Thanks for your patience.

Verity

Great feedback from our NEW website

We've had such wonderful feedback from our new website, I thought I'd share some of it to make those of you who've not seen it yet go and have a peek...
www.enablethechildren.org

Great website!!!!
how impressed I am with your website. It looks really excellent ... the logo, the photos, the content
absolutely amazing
It is nice and easy to navigate and easy to read
what a delight
A very moving experience looking through the pages of this web site
It provided a very good background to the work being done and will hopefully inspire many
The site looks great, very professional and informative.
It is easy to use and uncluttered.
I think its great!!!!!!!
What a professional looking website. Well done.Looks Fab. Really easy to use and clear to read.

Great stuff. Well done!!!

This is fabulous

Thanks to all who gave us feedback... keeping talking about it - it's great publicity for us!!

Interviews coming up...

That's right.... time for interviewing again.

The ~Enable the Children~ team in Sierra Leone are on the look out for a new Rehab Assistant to train up.

A large part of our aim is to pass on therapy skills to national Sierra Leoneans by having them work practically with us as well as more formal study.

However finding people who are willing to work hard and study hard, work with children who are often outcast due to their severe disability as well as crossing other cultural boundries like getting on the dirt floor to play with these children and sometimes being dribbled (or worse!) over.... it's not an easy person to come by.

So please pray with us that we find the right person.

~Enable the Children~ WEBSITE LAUNCH :o)

It has been a while coming, but I'm pleased to announce the launching of
our NEW WEBSITE:

www.enablethechildren.org

It's a great read and looks amazing thanks to the same guy who designed
our logo Huw Briscoe (www.unfoldstudio.com). He and I have worked hard
on the content and you'll even recognise some of the faces!

It would be great if you CHECK US OUT and send in comments/thoughts on what you see!!
I'd love to hear from you.

Abu and Sarah continue visiting our families out in Sierra Leone as the rainy season starts. Please keep them and their safety in mind at this time. More updates to follow....

Thanks to you all

Vez

~Enable the Children~ BLOGGING...

For the past few months, most of you will know that I have been settling back to life in the UK, while the work of ~Enable the Children~ has continued in Sierra Leone.

My exciting news is that a few weeks ago the lovely Rob proposed to me and I said yes! So we're now happily engaged and looking forward to the rest of our lives together. Wedding planning should be a doddle after trying to organise a project in Sierra Leone, but I'll let you know if that is the case after October, by which point we should hopefully be married!

Sarah, however, has been faithfully plodding along in the heat and now rains with Abu in Sierra Leone, visiting our families and working with our disabled children.

Till now, this blog has been a personal blog, mostly updating supporters with the news from Sierra Leone. Now that I have returned to the UK, I have decided that the blog will become a news update place for ~Enable the Children~. Sarah's newsletters from Sierra Leone will be posted here, as well as any news from ~Enable the Children~ generally.

I have back posted Sarah's newsletters from

Jan http://vez-in-sierraleone.blogspot.com/2010/01/sarahs-news-jan-2010.html,

Feb/March http://vez-in-sierraleone.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html,

and April/May http://vez-in-sierraleone.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html

So have a read

and

continue to watch this space for all ~Enable the children~ updates.

Thank you for your support. If there is any other info you would like to contact me about or you are interested in supporting us further, please do not hesitate to email me vez@junglephysio.co.uk

SARAH's news.... April / May 2010

Hi everyone,
I hope you are all well and enjoying the Spring!

The last month and a half here in Freetown has been lots of fun. The main event has been our Beach Gathering on 24th April...this is an annual get together on the beach organised by Enable the Children, which all the children and their families we work with are invited to. For families and carers it's a fantastic opportunity to meet others in a similar situation to themselves and to support each other. For the children it's a chance to have fun playing in the sand and sea - this might be their only trip to the beach within the year.

Around 85 people came (picture above under the shade of a tree) and we spent the morning with a mixture of playing, chatting together, singing, and sharing food and drink.
The biggest highlights for me were the smiles on the children's faces and hearing some of
conversations between the mums particularly one lady when she discovered her child was
not the only one unable to walk at 2 years old.
The photos above show the children playing in the water, Abu playing in the sand with Zainab (a girl with cerebral palsy) and her sister and myself holding Ramatu (a 17 month old with hydrocephalus, poor eyesight and hearing).

You may remember from previous newsletters that we gave Ramatu's mum, Fatmata (pictured left with Ramatu), a small loan to start a business. I'm really happy to report that this is going well and she has already started re-paying the loan and she seems much more positive about life and caring for Ramatu.

You may also remember reading about Kadija, a little girl who acquired her neurological problems after being abducted. We have now done a follow up visit to deliver and fit the gaiters (leg splints) and a stranding frame, as photographed. We also reviewed her exercise program, which the carers have been doing brilliantly with since out initial visit.

Other updates:

· It has been fab to have my friend Becky Harris to visit for a month. She divided her time between Enable the Children and my housemate's organisation, called Word Made Flesh (working in one of the slum areas of Freetown). We also had a chance to get some very relaxing and entertaining beach visits in.

· City of Rest: We are starting to explore making paper beads with the ladies as an income generating project, as inspired by Sue Smith's project with ladies in Uganda. I have also been running an art group for anyone who wants to come. What I love about this group is that some of the most keen participants are individuals who aren't able to engage in a lucid conversation because of their state of mental health.

· Mercy Ships: Their birthing centre now is now officially opened. I continue to go there one day a week to assess children referred by the outpatient clinic and to make cards with the ladies.

· We now have a room for some office space to have meetings, training and store the equipment. I am very pleased that I will no longer have to share my room with boxes of toys, walking aids and many other random items.

I am very thankful to God for a fantastic month and for how he has brought all the things together for the work in a way I could never have done in my own strength.

Thank you for your continued prayers, and if you get a chance I would love if you could pray for:
· New work colleagues to join the team (both Sierra Leonian and professional expats) to increase our capacity to see the many children that are referred to us.

· Someone to live in my house while I'm away over the summer, as my housemate will also be away and it would be good to have someone in the house.

· We would like to start some group work after the summer to provide an ongoing type of support group for the families we work with. Please pray that we can get this from an "ideas" stage to this being a practical reality.

Extremes and Website, on it's way...

The last few months have been somewhat busy.

My transition back into the UK has had it's ups and downs. There have been such special times with friends and family with many events like Christmas, birthday's and Easter. And settling down into working in NHS hospitals and with patients in the community in the UK has been a huge adjustment too - the diagnostic facilities here are amazing, as are the medicines, the wide range of highly skilled professionals, even access to equipment, bathrooms and clean running water are alien to our children and their families in Sierra Leone.

Why are there such extremes in this world?

No-one can answer that, but we all can live in a way that is respectful and caring of others around us, both near and far. And those of us living in such priveledged societies, make sure we are thankful and appreciative of those blessings.

The news from ~Enable the Children~ is that we have been working hard on a new short film clip and website (http://www.enablethechildren.org/).

Watch this space, but they are going to be amazing!