Monthly Archive for July, 2002

HUGE NEWS!!!!!!! We have been awarded our Standards for Approval. Homes of Hope are now a Level One Community Services Provider under Section 396 of the CYFS Act 1989!! Yahoo!!! This is a MAJOR triumph!! The only condition of our approval was that we action our services within three months of the approval date – DONE!!!! ?

Out of the starting blocks and we’re off…

This has been the most gigantic month of all! Our House Parents, Janet and Phil, and their three children, have moved into the home and we have our first resident children.

It seems hard to imagine, yet at the same time so very natural.

Janet and Phil have made the home a lovely haven. They had about 10 days of moving and settling in before the children arrived and have had tremendous support from the community.

The day our first children were due to arrive Colleen and I rushed around to the house and put Warriors duvet covers and a rugby ball in their rooms – their Care Plan indicated they were interested in rugby. I then went to their new school with Janet, to meet with the headmaster to discuss enrolments. As I drove away I was suddenly completely overcome. The tears flowed from the pit of my stomach and the bottom of my shoes – “They’re coming home… They’re coming home ….” It has been HUGE!!!! Words just cannot adequately express these emotions and the final realization that everything we have been working towards is becoming a reality.

We have had some hiccups with school admissions, but the process is just as important as the outcome and we are learning about mediation, communication, compromise and finding corporate wisdom to achieve the best for the children.

The children have been settled for 10 days now and Janet and Phil reported that they are so much a part of the family already. We also have Sharon, a volunteer teacher, who has started working as a Support Staff member and who goes into the home after school and over the weekends as needed. What a tremendous blessing and HUGE heart for these children she has. They are deeply loved and it is just such a privilege to be part of this wonderful, restoring and healing process.

Plans are scooting ahead for our Charity Dinner Dance – you won’t want to miss this!! For tickets contact – info@homesofhope.org.nz Tom Sharplin is on standby to rock ‘n’ roll the night away with the band Crosstalk. Hors d’ouevres, bubbly, 3 course dinner, tea/coffee…. Proceeds will go towards helping a Kiwi kid on their way!

Watch this space!

Hilary

Another intensive month in paradise. It’s been a mixed bag of highs and lows, but the scales are favouring the positive. Between long hours, tropical heat and times of frustration, there has been times of magic.

From visiting an illegal immigrant slum in Denpasar, to creating the Trust’s website – this will be up late July so keep your eye out – It has been a month of diversity.

My best moment this month was when I visited one of our patients in Denpasar, who we suspected had a tumour in her enlarged stomach. I expected to enter the house and arrange an ultrasound appointment. Instead I walked in to discover a newborn, plump and healthy baby asleep in her grandmother’s arms! Our patient had firmly denied even the possibility of a pregnancy as she is without a husband or partner. So instead of organising a specialist appointment for our patient Novi, I found myself taking down an order for baby formula. I found this absolutely hilarious and an enormous relief! I’m not sure if the family understood why my smile was so enormous – the prognosis could have been so much more serious!

My most difficult experience this month was when a patient we had referred on to a specialist centre was not accepted for an appointment as the centre believed they could not help him. I felt incredibly hopeless for this poor boy who has been disabled since birth.

Earlier this month we farewelled volunteer Sue Cowie. My melancholy at her departure however was swiftly reversed as within two days of returning to Auckland she had booked a ticket back to Bali for August! Western-trained physiotherapists with paediatric experience are in very short demand and not only did she give a lot to both patients and local medical staff alike, having Sue was also a marvellous point of leverage for the Trust in Bali.

The current implications for the Trust in Bali are we have no full time medical support on the ground here. The only thing for this situation is patience and a ‘wait and see’ approach. This is easier said than done given, I am very aware of some Trust patients requiring urgent attention – especially those with open leprosy wounds living in a shared space. I’ve attempted to transform this negative into a positive and spent the month firmly focused on marketing, fundraising and developing recruitment templates.

With all this time spent on a computer my most recent purchase is a NEW BIGGER AND BETTER Voltage Stabiliser – which is SUPPOSED to stop all the electric shocks I’ve been getting from my laptop. No joy. As long as there are power surges in Indonesia, I’ll remain on the receiving end of electric shocks. A reminder to all in the third world, wear shoes when working with electrical equipment.

Annette