We would like to say a massive thank you to Diane Demeger for her support for our charity, by donating money instead of buying presents for friends and family at Christmas time. We have various projects at the moment where the money will be used, such as sending out more equipment (6 boxes have just arrived in Kampala); funding another newly qualified physiotherapist to work in a rural hospital in Kagando for 3 months (Pius started on 1st March); buying text books for the new surgical trainees who started in January 2016, to name just a few. So the recipients of Diane’s ‘present donation’ can rest assured that the money is getting used to fund these projects, which may be small, but will help so much.
Here are a few words from Diane about her donations, and some photos of her son, Oli:
I stumbled on Interface Uganda by chance just before Christmas and it couldn’t have been more propitious. I had decided to give a present of a donation to charity to a couple of friends and to my sons and whilst I knew that Oxfam did a range of cards for this purpose I decided to search for a smaller charity that would use a higher percentage of the donation ‘in the field’ rather than on administration and further fundraising.
Here are my hastily scribbled notes:
Interface Uganda ticked all the boxes and it was icing on the cake to find that it was a local charity.
As I scrolled down I saw a photo of a small child with a cleft lip or ‘wide smile’ and I just sat there smiling remembering the day twenty years ago when my first child was born with a cleft lip and palate at the hospital in Oxford. I was very pleased when I saw that Tim Goodacre supported your charity as he was my son’s surgeon for 18 years and I always admired his very open, personable approach with the children and the anxious parents as well as his skill as a surgeon. Jane Sibley was our cleft nurse and sat with us before Oli was born showing us photos of children before and after surgery and when they were adults. As you can see from these photos the change the surgeons can make is remarkable and it is through my personal experiences that I know that the cleft surgery that is being funded by Interface Uganda is essential for a child to have a real chance of a normal life without the physical difficulties and the stigma attached.