Our projects for 2017

In the fragile balance of the world, La Chaîne de l’Espoir is building solid and durable foundations to help sick and vulnerable children. Many projects will be completed in 2017.

In addition to the opening of the Cuomo Centre for Paediatric Cardiology in Dakar, a Children’s Pavilion adjacent to the new centre will be created in the spring. It will be used to accommodate children from the West African subregion during their treatment and convalescence.

Nearby, a new construction project will be initiated in Mali with the building at the end of 2017 of the André Festoc Paediatric Cardiac Surgery Unit inside the Luxembourg Hospital. It will offer young Malians tailored surgical treatments.

In Iraqi Kurdistan, another part of the world riven by conflict and destruction, an operating theatre for emergency surgery has been restored in Rabia to treat the many Syrian and Iraqi refugees living there.

The accompaniment of local medical and surgical teams is vital to the operation of the new buildings.

In view of the opening of the André Festoc Paediatric Cardiac Surgery Unit in Bamako, the future medico-surgical team will therefore be flying to Viên Tim hospital in Hô Chi Minh City in the spring to be trained as did the Senegalese team in 2016.

In that same region, the training missions, which are part of the support to the postgraduate Diploma in Paediatric Surgery in West Africa, will continue in order to strengthen the training of the next generation of local doctors and surgeons.

In the Ivory Coast, La Chaîne de l’Espoir is committed to accompany the training of the staff of the upcoming Mother-Child Hospital of Bingerville where the first surgeries should take place in December.

In Afghanistan, the second class of students from the Postgraduate Medical Education will graduate in March. Two women are among the graduates, which is a tremendous step forward in a country where few women have access to training.

Finally, in May 2017, La Chaîne du Savoir will launch its ECHOES programme (training platform in remote live echocardiography) with the same objective of transferring medical expertise to local staff.

One objective remains at the heart of the missions: treating.

In Burkina Faso, two reconstructive facial surgery missions are repeated every year including an action plan to fight the scourge of noma, a devastating gangrenous infection of the face.

In Togo, peripatetic missions will continue and a project to treat caustic stenosis will be introduced.

In Iran and Bangladesh, the collaboration with our local partners is still going on to operate on patients suffering from orthopaedic or visceral pathologies.

Special attention will also be paid to Syrian refugee children in Jordan with the dispatch of cardiac and orthopaedic surgery missions. In Lebanon, La Chaîne de l’Espoir is planning to bring its medical and surgical expertise to help the many Syrian refugees. 

To give children a chance to live in dignity is also to allow them to go to school, thus opening doors to a better future for them.

In India, school enrolment projects for girls and empowerment projects for mothers will be expanded and open to a larger number. The mobile clinic project offering access to health care for an isolated population will also be expanded.

Nepal, that shares a border with India, will continue to receive support from La Chaîne de l’Espoir. The introduction of medical care in the help provided to the street children sheltered by our local partner, the Children Protection Centers and Services (CPCS), will be pursued.

Lastly in Haiti, severely hit in October 2016, the rehabilitation of the devastated schools in the town of Abricots will be pursued as one of the priorities during the year. La Chaîne de l’Espoir, with the help of a paediatrician who has assessed the status of schools after the hurricane, is getting ready to implement a school health pilot project for the first time on the island. It will enable the 1,200 children benefiting from our school enrolment programmes to have regular medical check-up (ophthalmology, ENT...).