M 10/01/1994
|
| |
M’s oldest sister, guardian of her 4 younger brothers and sisters, brought her sister to the house. Their parents were alcoholics and both died one quickly after the other. M’s brothers also live in orphanages. Before coming to the house, M had never left her parents’ house and she had never been to school. She never experienced her parents’ love and they didn’t bring her up. M is mentally handicapped and she has trouble speaking. At first, nobody could understand what she said and she was very frightened of men. She used to hide her toys because she didn’t know how to play with them. Now she goes to school with S. M is always cheerful, she laughs a lot and likes playing with the younger children and the volunteers. She helps a lot in the cuarto de Lupes. Sometimes she doesn’t know when to stop teasing, because she doesn’t know the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. She liked dancing, volleyball, and she is very energetic. |
|
N 14/12/2004
|
| |
N came to the house with chronic malnutrition. She was hardly able to walk properly. Her mother had lost her whole family during the period of terrorism in the region and had grown up with adoptive parents. Seriously traumatized, N’s mother used to live on the streets more than at home. At 15 she became pregnant – N’s older sister lives in another home. Now her mother has had a third child and N lives in the house. Working with N calls for a lot of patience, but she is delightful. You have to watch out because the other children reject her. Her smile is precious. She loves learning new things, and likes adult attention. She love
s it when volunteers that she knows well help her get dressed. She also loves jigsaw puzzles; drawing ... she needs to be stimulated
to work on her balance. More than most, N is a cheerful child. |
|
F 17/12/1996
|
| |
(Brother of S, L, A, and B)
Just like his friend E, he also enjoys playing football and riding his bike. F is a straightforward child, sometimes a bit shy with other people and likes adult contact. |
|
L 14/04/1998
|
| |
(Brother of S, F, A, and B)
Like the other boys, he also loves playing football and riding his bike, and he does it well. L is a very active and alert boy. He wants to be good at everything, and if anyone says he’s done something badly he can really moan. He often fights with his brother A. |
|
A 21/02/2000
|
| |
(Brother of S, L, F, and B)
A also likes playing football, but he also often plays with the younger children. He is best friends with F and his little brother S. He can be very nice and kind, but he can also sometimes be difficult. He used to often lie and steal books from the house ... to sell them at school. A smart child! Sometimes he teases the younger children, like A, and makes them cry. When there is a meeting he always behaves like a very understanding boy, and apologizes for the upset he has caused himself and the other children, but the question is does his behaviour ever really change? |
|
B 17/07/2003
|
| |
(Sister of S, A, F and L)
She is the little princess of the house. She likes attention and loves to dance. Her best friend is D, and the two girls are always together. Now they need to learn how to do things on their own. B likes playing all sorts of games with the volunteers, she’s a very pretty and cheerful child. She can also be very proud. |
|
S 18/06/2004
|
| |
(Brother of F, L, A, and B)
S is a very cheerful child, with a beautiful smile. At first, he likes to test new volunteers. He asks lots of questions and likes looking at photos of things people in the house have done. He loves sleeping and often cries when he has to get up. The best solution is to wake him up very gently and quietly. He likes playing with the volunteers. S is the most dominant and receptive of the little boys. |
|
E 08/04/1997
|
| |
In 2002, he arrived at the house with his two older brothers. Their mother had died and two months later their father was arrested for possession of cocaine. He was accused of drug-trafficking and was sent to prison. The brothers came from the jungle where education is very poor. Most children stay at home to help their parents with work. The children regularly visited their father in prison. It was very important that they kept in touch with him. Now, his brothers live at URPI, the state-run orphanage for boys aged 6-18; E chose to stay at the house. Now their father is free and lives in the jungle. The brothers will prorably go and live with him again. E is one of the oldest boys in the house. He likes playing football, riding his bike, and playing in the garden. He is often the winner of games and competitions. He’s an easy and cheerful child. |
|
A 26/05/2001
|
| |
A was born in prison, where his parents are doing time for drug-trafficking. He lived there for 2 years until there was an accident and he fell into a pot of boiling water. He was immediately taken to hospital, where he was treated for burns for a month. After that he was supposed to return to the prison, but he refused. Even today, A sometimes still seems to be suffering from shock. His sister C came to the house 3 years after Alberto. He likes playing with his cars and toys, and he loves animals. He is also best friends with F. A is a kind boy, especially towards Gil and Chantal, but he can also be very difficult. Sometimes there are outbursts, he screams, cries, hits out ... A needs lots of compliments and love. |
|
C
|
| |
She is a calm and responsible girl. She does all her homework without complaining. Sometimes she can be a bit difficult, if she feels badly treated. She likes playing with the volunteers and she is very creative. |
|
D 16/02/2002
|
| |
(She is F’s sister.) Their mother died from an illness, because she didn’t have enough money for medicine, and their father couldn’t bring them up on his own and work at the same time. Their grandmother loves them very much and comes to visit them every week. Unfortunately she is also unable to look after them as she already has other small children of her own. Their father visits them every fortnight and he hopes he’ll be able to take them home when they are older. D is a responsible, nice and calm little girl. She looks after her brother F well. She likes playing with her friend B and with the volunteers. However, when she’s not happy about something, she makes it very clear! |
|
F 14/05/2004
|
| |
F and his sister, D, arrived at the house in 2006 because their mother had died and their father couldn’t work and look after them at the same time. Their grandmother loves them very much and comes to visit them often but she can’t look after them either has she has her own young children. Their father comes twice a month and hopes that when they are older they’ll be able to go and live with him. Working with F requires a lot of patience. He doesn’t like sharing his toys, and when another child is playing too, F always wants the other’s toy. He often cries for nothing, and the best thing is to leave him to calm down on his own, or to make him laugh by doing something completely different, because if you’re too strict, that just makes him cry more. When he’s in a good mood, he plays nicely. He’s very empathic and always asks how you are. He loves cuddles. |
|
S 16/10/1987
|
| |
S is 22, and she is the oldest girl in the house. She is hard of hearing and has a mild mental handicap. We don’t know much about her past. She was found on the streets of Lima when she was 10. Then she was employed as a cleaner in a house and was often very badly treated. 4 years later she was ended up at the family court because the woman S worked for wanted to move house and couldn’t emply her anymore. She came to Ayacucho and to the house. In the mornings S goes to a special school and in the afternoons she helps at the house. She has started to speak a little bit. S is a responsible girl, calm, and very nice. She helps the lupes a lot and in the kitchen. She gets on very well with Francine and she helps her makes cakes. S likes knitting. She’ll probably always stay at the house as this has now become her home. |
|
| E 16/05/2003 |
| |
E arrived at the house in August 2004. Unfortunately he has no family. His mother died when he was born and E was taken in by another family with 6 children. His adoptive mother then died and then he was brought to the house. E is blind and has a cerebral palsy. He goes for therapy 3 times a week. They help him to walk a bit, and are hoping that he’ll be able to do this on his own soon. He needs a lot of love and attention. He very affectionate and smiles a lot, but sometimes he can be very aggressive, and when he’s not happy, he bangs his head on the floor. He loves playing with a ball and can spend hours listening to music and loves being taken for walks by volunteers, in a manta on their backs. He is on the adoption list. |
|
S 28/11/1993
|
| |
After S, she is the next oldest girl in the house. She is a responsible girl who helps her brothers and sister and the other children. She is calm and doesn’t ask much of the volunteers. You need to take time to get to know her better, to find that she is very lovely girl! |
|
F 18/02/1993
|
| |
She is younger than her sister. She can be in a very good mood one day, and then in a very bad mood the next. When she doesn’t want to do something, it’s very hard to motivate her. On the other hand, when she’s in a good mood, she laughs a lot, likes being with the volunteers and playing with the other children. |
|
J 18/09/1998
|
| |
Another boy who likes playing football and riding his bike. He also likes helping in the kitchen. He’s a very proud and strong-headed child, and he’s not good at apologising if he misbehaves. On the other hand, if you compliment him, he’s the happiest boy in the house! He can annoy his brother A to the point of making him cry. |
|
A 27/07/2001
|
| |
A can be a very nice child, but at the same time, he can be the most difficult child in the house. He often cries and if you get angry with him, he can get really upset, crying, screaming, hitting ... He often doesn’t listen to the volunteers or obey them. But sometimes he’ll take your hand and ask you to play with him. He likes playing with his car and in the garden. |
|
F 16/11/1999
|
| |
F arrived at the house in April 2007 when he was 8. He’s a very special child; even though he’s 11 years old, he has a mental age of 3. He is mentally handicapped, caused by violence, but his parents are also mentally handicapped. During the first 6 years of his life, F lived with his mother. However, according to his aunt, his mother didn’t know what to do with him and locked him in a room for 6 years, depriving him of clothes and food. F was found one cold and rainy day in a corner of a dark lane, he was very dirty, just wearing a jumper, bare feet, and seriously malnourished. He’d been so hungry that he’d even eaten his own excrement. Working with F demands a lot of concentration and patience. Lots of things that Fermin does don’t seem to make any sense. When he arrived at the house, he was hyperactive, used to bite and hit others sometimes ... He regularly ignored what people said to him. But as we didn’t know his level of mental handicap, it was difficult to know how much his behaviour was the result of his ‘illness’ or of the violence he suffered when he was little. Twice a week he goes for therapy. In November 2007, two volunteers created a treatment plan for F, with activities to stimulate him and to help control his aggressive attitude. The work they have done shows that he is capable of understanding and doing things asked of him. It is important for his development that this work with him follows a strict routine, and he will get used to doing basic activities in normal daily life - washing his hands, brushing his teeth, getting dressed, etc. It’s also important to treat F like a normal child, and for him to mix as much as possible with the other children. You have to be careful as others might hit him. He loves kisses, looking people in the eye, little bits of paper, water and merry-go-rounds. |
|
C 17/03/2006
|
| |
C is the youngest child in the house at the moment. He came in August 2007, transferred from another orphenage where they couldn’t cope with his psychomotor instability. His mother, who suffers from mental illness, gave birth on a dance floor at a discotheque. C came into the world smashing his right side straight onto the floor. Now he does daily exercises, physical therapy to stimulate his arms and legs, especially his right hand that he still never uses. Not long ago he said his first word: GRACIAS and has managed to walk 4 steps and is beginning to walk on his own. He’s an alert child, a happy baby, with a strong character. He will return to the other orphenage once he’s completed the therapy at the house. |
|
D 08/12/1999
|
| |
He used to live in the mountains with his mother who went off to work everyday, and so he stayed in the house on his own. His father doesn’t have any money or a house. Early on in his life, D wasn’t stimulated by his surroundings. His mother comes to visit every 2 months, but it’s unlikely that he will return to live with her. He’s the gentlest child in the house. When he doesn’t like something, he makes it clear by making little noises. When he came to the house, he couldn’t open his eyes, now he can. He manages to make out shadows, but doesn’t speak. He needs a lot of stimulation as he has cerebral palsy. |
|
Y 23/03/2002
|
| |
Y was brought to the casa by his father looking for help as his wife had left him. They were living in a house without electricity, water or a toilet and his dad could not leave him to go to work due to his cerebal palsy. Now his father is a successful bread maker and visits his son regularly. Although he can't walk or talk and can only make out shadows he is extremely expressive with his face. His father now has a new family and hopes to be able to take Y back home in the near future. Y loves music and getting kisses. |
|
| Sheyla 08/04/2003 |
| |
Sheyla has mild cerebral palsy, and she has problems speaking. Her dislocated hip makes it difficult to walk. She had an operation to try to solve the problem and she can walk on her own now but not without problems. What’s more, Sheyla is epileptic. Her mother is young and an alcoholic; she’s currently looking for work and needs to sort out her life style. She comes to see her daughter every Sunday and Sheyla sometimes goes to her house too. Sheyla will return to live with her mother one day. Sheyla lacks self-confidence and always needs lots of attention. |
|
N 17/09/2004
|
| |
N arrived in 2005 straight from the hospital where she was born, as she had a serious lung problem, which according to the doctors should have been fatal. She has cerebral palsy and a lung problem. Her father can’t read or write and is an alcoholic. She also has 8 brothers. Her mother works out in the countryside in order to be able to bring her family a bit of food. Since her birth, N spent more time in hospital than with her family, but she wasn’t welcome at the hospital because the doctors thought she was a hopeless case. Their advice was to leave her to die. But thanks to her time in the house, she has pulled through. She manages to make out shadows. She often has a high temperature, weighs less than average for her age, and her lungs regularly fill up with water. We don’t know how long she will survive, but in the meantime she enchants every helper and volunteer with her magnificent smile. She’s a little one with lots of goodwill who’s fighting for her life. |
|
RK 05/03/1999
|
| |
RK was one of the first 3 children to come to the house. She was found near the rubbish bins, dogs, pigs, and rats. She was taken to the hospital immediately; her malnutrition was very severe and the doctors thought she had cerebral palsy. She couldn’t move any part of her body, she couldn’t speak, had convulsions (the slightest noise triggered a convulsion), and her body was covered in burns and she was blind. We don’t know anything about her life before she was brought to the house and she’ll never be able to tell us. When she came to the house she seemed very sad ... she was in a terrible state for weeks. Gil and Chantal had never seen such an unhappy child, and then one day she smiled. According to the doctors, her state is irreversible. She can only eat food in liquid form, and feeding her requires a lot of patience.
On 31 December 2003, RK was adopted by Gil and Chantal. |
|
| L 14/11/2004 |
| |
L has a very fragile health. He has the bronchus in very poor condition and has a severe infection in one ear.
In fact he has this infection since he was eight months and it was never treated.
He may need surgery. He will be soon enrolled in a private school. He is very happy he doens't want to go back to his house. Sometimes his mother comes to visit him with this brothers and sisters.
|
|
| MJ 28/03/2002 |
| |
The mother of MJ was abandoned by her husband and lived in extreme poverty. MJ has 2 sisters and a brother.
The mother has abandoned her children for + -4 months to reconcile with the father of her youngest child. Almost every child has a different father. She fell from the "manta" of her mother when she was a baby, she lost partial use of her left eye. She never left her house, nobody looked after her and she didn't receive medical treatment because her mother could not afford it. Today she is suffering from a serious handicap. We decided to take care of her to save her from certain death.
|
|
| MA 23/08/2001 |
| |
The mother is 43 years old and MA's father is 63 years old. MA was born from the father's second marriage, he has a son who is 17 years old, from his first marriage. The family lived in extreme poverty. MA has a cerebral palsy, she doesn't walk, doesn't talk, is almost blind but she is fighting so that one day she might be a little more independent. She has received no treatment for her illness. Through rehabilitation, she is learning to walk and to talk. |
|
|
