This campaign has now closed
Can you even begin to imagine how hard it must be to try to look after a deafblind child with no support or guidance? Deafblind people in poor countries are the most marginalised people in the world. Romania is one of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe, with 23% of the population living below the income poverty line. The aim of this project is to reach deafblind babies and children at the earliest stage possible, in order to ensure that they receive the support they need to enable them to develop communication, mobility and social skills - so vital to a child’s development. Their families will be involved from the first assessment through to the development of communication skills, so that children are supported at home as well as by professionals.
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This project will allow Sense International to expand services to three Bucharest hospitals to provide support to newborn deafblind babies and their families in Romania. A unique multi-disciplinary team including experts in education, health and social services will target babies at risk of deafblindness through screening and identification in the maternity wards. Sense International (Romania) will enlist the support of two medical staff: one audiologist and one opthalmologist for each hospital. Each hospital will be equipped with specialist audiological screening equipment, and training will be given to the medical staff. They will assess the child and establish an individual plan including physiotherapy, learning feeding skills, communications skills and the stimulation of residual hearing or vision. New parents of a deafblind child will receive counselling and support. This innovative project will allow us to gather information from 15,000 at risk babies per year, on the incidence of deafblindness in Romania, the nature of the disability and the causes of deafblindness. We really need your help to provide these much-needed services to newborn babies in Romania. Thank you.