Children to Receive Some of Life's Basic Necessities
Surgeries, medical equipment, orphanages, libraries and other essentials are donated
PROVO, Utah - June 18, 2003 - In areas of the world where a few thousand dollars will build a house or an entire school, help make heart surgery possible for hundreds of children or house dozens of homeless children, the Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation recently made a series of grants worth nearly $150,000.
The grants to assist children in Thailand, Malaysia, India, Central America, Mozambique and the Philippines with critical needs ranging from housing to surgery, were made to several different non-profit organizations and charities by the Foundation in March and April.
One grant, to the Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Foundation (PCSF), supports surgeries for children in Thailand who are born with congenital heart disease. A donation was sent to PCSF in April in order to expand the current intensive care unit at Rajvithi Hospital in Bangkok. The expanded intensive care unit will be able to accommodate nearly 500 more children annually and allow the children to recuperate under direct medical supervision. The donation is the latest of several grants the Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation has made to PCSF over the years.
Pirapat Mokarapong, MD, and PCSF Secretary-General, said donations like this "make a life and death difference" to many children in Thailand.
Other activities supported by the Foundation's March/April donations went to build and maintain an orphanage, purchase surgical equipment, construct a library and provide baby essentials to children in other parts of the world. A brief description of each of the projects supported by the most recent Foundation donations is outlined below:
Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Foundation (Thailand)
In Thailand, approximately 5,000 babies are born with congenital heart disease each year, and about 1,500 children with congenital heart disease are left untreated every year. In response to the need to perform the necessary surgeries on these young children, friends and surgeons of the Institute of Cardiovascular Disease at Rajvithi Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand founded the Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Foundation (PCSF) in June 1997. The Foundation's goals are to increase the number of heart surgeries performed per year and to provide surgery in time to save more lives. To reach these goals, the current Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Rajvithi Hospital must be expanded in order to accommodate more children. The Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation donated funds in April 2003, and pledged to donate more in 2004, to help purchase equipment for the expanded ICU. The new unit will allow the hospital to operate on 500 more children annually and to allow the children to recuperate under direct medical supervision. The donation is the latest of several grants the Foundation has made to PCSF over the years.
Deseret International Foundation (Philippines)
Filipino children who need surgery will benefit from arthroscopic equipment donated by the Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation to Deseret International Foundation (DIF). Deseret International Foundation was founded by Springville, Utah resident Dr. Bill Jackson to provide volunteer surgical services in areas of the world with great need. Since 1994, the Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation has assisted the Deseret International Foundation with its work in the Philippines, Brazil and Ethiopia. The surgical equipment and past Foundation donations have assisted in operations to correct deformities such as cleft pallets, hare lips, burns, club feet and hands, crossed eyes and cataracts, and heart problems. Deseret International focuses on cases that are predictable, readily diagnosed, and require one-stage surgery.
World Vision Malaysia-New Covenant Community Center (Sentul, Malaysia)
More children in Sentul, a northern urban area of Kuala Lumpur, will have a place to learn and develop due in part to a grant from the Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation. New Covenant Community Center in Sentul consists of a learning center and a baby stimulation center. The donation will help provide a mini library, including books and other educational supplies, baby cribs, bottles, diapers, first aid kits, cognitive development materials and a new children's learning center. The New Covenant Community focuses on ministering to the urban poor in Sentul by providing non-formal education to needy children and on helping babies develop mentally. Because of the donation, 45-70 children will be able to learn English and mathematics each day. The new children's learning center will double the number of children that can be accommodated. The donation was made through World Vision Malaysia, an organization that operates numerous projects to help rehabilitate victims of economic poverty, natural catastrophes and war.
Rising Star Outreach-Sangitha Toddler Home (India)
The Sangitha Toddler Home in Chennai, India is home to approximately 40 abandoned children ages 2-5. Some of the children are children of lepers, and some have been abused or neglected. In the Sangitha home, they are cared for by Paul and Grace Moses through funding from Rising Star Outreach, a non-profit organization centered in Atlanta, Georgia. The facility housing the Sangitha Toddler Home is becoming inadequate to meet the needs of an increasing number of children. A donation from the Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation will help provide a home large enough to house approximately 100 children.
International Volunteers in Urology (Haiti, Honduras)
In some of the world's developing countries, pediatric surgeons are not taught urology, and adult urologists rarely treat children. Many children in these areas subsequently suffer from inadequate or nonexistent urology care. Consequently, urinary tract, bladder and genital abnormalities are among the common serious illnesses in children that are left untreated. The Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation donated funds to International Volunteers in Urology for the purchase of medical equipment to be used in upcoming trips by the group to Haiti and Central America. International Volunteers in Urology (IVU) is a non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to teaching and treating urology in developing countries. The ultimate goal of IVU is to teach the teachers in developing countries, ensuring long-term sustainability and professional independence of its programs.
The Rose Education Foundation (Guatemala)
The Rose Education Foundation has taken a profound interest in the education of economically disadvantaged Guatemalan children since the foundation's inception in 1997. Previously faced with the prospect of illiteracy, hundreds of children in Guatemala now receive an education at schools established by the foundation. With only modest libraries, consisting of as little as one bookshelf, the need for facilities and books is essential to the continued development of the children. A grant from the Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation will fund the construction of a new library facility at a school in Patzicia, Guatemala.
Care for Life (Mozambique)
Mozambique has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world-between 12 and 17 percent of the population has HIV/AIDS-leaving thousands of children orphaned each year. Mozambique's orphaned children subsequently live on the streets surviving any way they can. Care for Life, an Arizona-based non-profit organization, is committed to ease this desperate situation by helping create group homes for children in Mozambique's Sofala Province. Care for Life is teaming up with Ana Paula Semedo, a woman who has been working without compensation for the past 10 years to ease the suffering of children there. Ana Paula currently oversees an orphanage that cares for an annual average of 80 at-risk children, such as orphans and babies abandoned on the streets. The Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation donated funds to assist with a project that includes: the building and maintenance of a home for 12-20 orphans and at-risk children, the creation of an agriculture project that will provide food for the children of the home and a related infant orphanage, and sustainable in-kind salary to at least 10 workers.
Additionally, a portion of the overall March/April donations went to the Epidermolysis Bullosa Medical Research Foundation and to the Seacology Foundation.
The Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation was established in 1996. It is a nonprofit organization that provides funds and products to create a better world for children by improving human life, continuing indigenous cultures, and protecting fragile environments. Revenue for the Foundation comes from a portion of product sales and employee and distributor donations.
For more information visit the Nu Skin Force for Good Foundation Web site at www.forceforgood.org.