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September,
2002
Hello
friends of EKI!
We, at Equip K.I.D.S. International, have had a
very busy summer and are excited to tell you about what we have
been up to.
Perhaps the most exciting event this summer was
the opening of our locale in Cusco, Peru. This office allows us to
provide rehabilitative services to more children in the area,
while also acting as our Latin-American headquarters. Our
psychologists, Jorge and Sandra, currently work at the locale two
days a week, offering communication therapy, as well as
educational and psychological services, to children with
disabilities and their families. On these days, we are often joined
by a physiotherapist who offers their services to our clients on a voluntary
basis. The other three days a week, Jorge and Sandra continue to
run our Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) program
located in a local pediatric rehabilitation centre (Hogar Clinic
San Juan de Dios del Cusco).
Other exciting news includes our new, formal
relationship with the Tides Foundation (www.tidesfoundation.org)
in California. Tides has set up a special Global Support Fund for
us, which allows our American friends to donate to our programs
through Tides (who then forwards the funds to us) while providing
a valid income-tax receipt to the donor.
August was a particularly busy month as we were
organizing and presenting a series of seminars regarding the
rehabilitation of children with Cerebral Palsy (CP), in Cusco,
Peru. Put on in conjunction with a local rehabilitation
hospital, the seminars ran for a week and included topics ranging
from the diagnosis and treatment of infants with CP to
alternative communication programs and the importance and use of
assistive technology. I am glad to say that the seminars were a
great success and have led to us being invited to produce similar
seminars/workshops in several other cities throughout the country.
In the area of production, we keep cutting,
hammering and sewing away, experimenting with new materials and
designs for the local production of wheelchairs and other
assistive technology.
As you can see, it certainly was a very busy
summer. We are now looking forward to an interesting and busy
fall. Our plans for the immediate future include:
-the distribution of 20 wheelchairs and walkers being shipped to
Peru thanks to a generous donation from Hope Haven International
Ministries (www.hopehaven.org) : Oct.-Nov. 2002
-a trip to Sucre, Bolivia in order to help a large
special-education centre set up their own Augmentative and
Alternative Communication (AAC) program and their own assistive-technology
workshop: Oct. 2002
-Jorge will be travelling to Venezuela to represent us at the 1sst
Ibero-American Conference of Organizations Of and For People with
Disabilities (this is a new network of Latin-American, as well as
Spanish and Portuguese organizations, and Equip K.I.D.S. has been
specially invited to participate in the conference as a founding
organization within the network): Oct. 2002
-Sandra will be travelling to San Luis, Argentina to represent us
at the 7th World Congress for the Inclusion of Children with
Disabilities (the last such congress was actually held in Canada):
Oct. 2002
- A trip to Chiclayo, Peru to put on a series of workshops
regarding the rehabilitation of children with disabilities:
Oct-Nov. 2002
- A trip to Arequipa, Peru for preliminary planing of Equip
K.I.D.S. International’s 1st International Conference on
communication in children with disabilities (name yet to be
determined), which is tentatively scheduled to take place in
Arequipa in May or June of 2003. : Nov. 2002
- All of the above while keeping our current programs running
smoothly.
Do take care everyone, and thank-you again for your support.
Sincerely,
Dana Corfield
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Executive Director
Equip K.I.D.S. International
www.equipkids.org
dcorfield@equipkids.org
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