This will be my 12th trip to the Philippines, and second surgical/speech therapy mission there this year! The foundation is extending the speech therapy mission to a new city… Kabankalan, province of Negros Occidental, Philippines! For the last five years children from this region have traveled all day to get to our speech site in Dipolog City on the island of Mindanao; Families have had to leave their home for two weeks for their children to receive intensive speech therapy on another island. This will be our first time providing speech therapy on the island of Negros Occidental-The team will be doing the traveling instead of the children and their parent or guardian!
Dr. Geoff Williams has been doing surgery in this region for many years. We are very excited to be extending the speech therapy component of the surgical mission for children with cleft lip and/or palate in this region!
We plan to arrive in Bacolod on the northern part of the island followed by a 90 minute car ride to the city of Kabankalan, on Saturday July 25th. Speech screenings will start on Saturday july 25th with some therapy starting Sunday july 26; initial surgeries will start on Monday! The design of the speech therapy program is the same as it has been in Dipolog for the last five years; a minimum of twice daily speech therapy sessions for all the children in both individual and group settings every day with parents or guardians practicing daily during other parts of the day!. Speech therapists- Theresa Snelling and Cynthia Alleman-wiill provide intensive speech therapy from Sunday through Saturday of week one. Cynthia will continue speech therapy on Monday and Tuesday of week 2, providing 10 days of intensive speech therapy for the children!
Please follow our blog and we will do our best to keep it updated with stories of the children as well as pictures of our surgery patients!!
Prayers for safe travel for the team and patients and successful surgery/speech therapy, are appreciated!
Picture below are some of the donations for the children receiving surgery as well as speech therapy! Thank you to the Filipino-Indonesian-Pacific Islands Heritage Camp participants for cards, games, toys and art supplies!! And thanks to the families in my office in Lakewood, Colorado for donations of toys, cards, cars, arts and crafts!!
SALAMAT (thank you),
Theresa
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