Day care blues: a case study

Watching over a sick kid can be harder than chasing after a healthy one.

Playing with kids at day care can be a lot of work, but nothing is harder than watching over a sick kid. Sabitri is probably the first kid volunteer’s notice at our Male Patan Project. She will run up to newcomers and immediately engage them in a game. She is a gregarious three year old and appropriately loud and wild. Normally she is quick to smile but this month she’s arrived at daycare on multiple occasions sick with a high fever.

Her temperature has been well over 100°F (~38°C) and subsequently her mood has been distant. It’s painful to watch how stoically she ignores the children playing around her yet doesn’t complain. Sabitri’s family is having a tough time. Her father is in the hospital with TB, which means her mother spends most of her time at the hospital as well. In Nepal nurses do not actively help administer medicines, feed patients or escort them to the toilet, which means a family member must always be by a patient’s side. Every day, Sabitri is dropped off and picked up at day care by her ten-year-old sister.

While the details of this story refer to one specific child’s circumstances, they are not unique. The children who go to the GVI supported day cares in Pokhara come from similar backgrounds and share similar stories. Children commonly show up with boils, rashes and warts that go untreated for weeks because a doctor’s visit is expensive and subsequently avoided. Getting a doctor to visit these day cares would make a huge difference. Which is why our next Charitable Trust Challenge – The Rangi Changi Race is raising money to get a doctor to visit each of our two day care centres once a month.

From hand washing and tooth brushing to disinfecting toys and cleaning, there’s a lot of elbow grease going into these daycares and some additional funds will allow us to take the program one step further. Our volunteers know first hand how hard it is to chase after so many children and they’ve also noticed that it’s much harder to watch a child that is normally running around like a maniac, sit quietly to the side due to a cold or the flu.

Rangi Changi is a Nepali term that means 'colorful' but also 'something that has great energy but is complex and chaotic.’ In Pokhara, it's a term that we use often from describing the children we work with to the spirit of our volunteers.  With the Rangi Changi Race we are hoping to make every day brighter. The next blog will highlight all of the activities involved in the challenge along with all of the details regarding how to start fundraising or maybe even donate yourself. 

Until then, feel free to visit our fundraising page http://www.justgiving.com/GVI-Rangi-Changi-Nepal

–Thanks in advance for all of your generous giving, hard work and enthusiasm.

Day care blues: a case study