Help us support disabled children in Vietnam
When the little Vietnamese girl was born in 2012 her father and her grandmother were there to welcome her into the world. But what a shock! Tran Hai Yen was born with a severely deformed left foot. Father and grandmother were so distraught that they didn’t let the mother see her baby for three days for fear that she might reject the child because of her disability.
Although an estimated 3,500 children suffering from birth defects similar to Tran Hai Yen’s are born in Vietnam every year, a long-term consequence of the Vietnam War, for the affected families it is still considered to be a disgrace.
Not everybody is as unfortunate as Tran Hai Yen and her family, but (sadly) theirs is not an isolated case. While serving in the military between 1968 and 1974, her grandfather was exposed to the toxic herbicide Agent Orange. During the Vietnam War it was used in large quantities by the Americans for defoliation and caused long-term genetic damage to an entire generation, still claiming thousands of victims to this day.
One of these victims is little Tran Hai Yen. Without help her fate would have been sealed long ago. She would not grow and develop normally, could not go to a regular school and as a result, she would be unlikely to find work as an adult.
Thanks to your support, this child has been spared such a fate!
Donations from Switzerland make it possible for Vietcot, an orthopaedic centre in Hanoi, to provide prostheses and orthoses to around 500 children and adolescents every year on behalf of Green Cross. Doctors from Green Cross Switzerland are visiting the centre on a regular basis to examine the young patients. Oftentimes their malformed limbs require surgery before they can be fitted with a prosthesis.
Without your support the enormous efforts for the wellbeing of these children would not be possible!
Let’s give Tran Hai Yen and the many other children carrying the same burden the support they need “to stand on their own two feet”.
With your help we can make it happen. Thank you!