Surgery changes the life of 7-year-old Nika
“I could not believe my child was given such a chance; I did not even know that his problems could be fixed with surgery,” confesses Nika’s mother, Shorena Kulijanishvili.
“The fact that Nika underwent successful surgery is the result of successful integration in between World Vision Georgia programmes as the Health Programme staff helped Child Sponsorship to liaison with the Caraps Medline - a well-known Georgian clinic providing children with hair lip and cleft palate with free surgeries.” said Sophia Petriashvili, World Vision Georgia Child Sponsorship Manager.
Seven-year-old Nika was 17 months old when he underwent his first surgery to correct a cleft palate; a birth defect that affects the upper lip and roof of the mouth. Both a cleft lip and cleft palate can lead to problems with eating, talking and ear infections.
Surgery is the most common treatment for cleft palate. For the most part, it’s done when the child is between 12 months and 18 months old. As a child grows, he or she sometimes needs more than one operation. But the problem is normally fixed by the time a child is a teen.
But for Nika the outcome was very different. After the first surgery his family was told that Nika’s health could not be improved and they could do nothing more to help him.
Besides economic problems, families like Nika’s in rural areas lack information about health and other fields. The Kurjanashvilis live in the mountainous village of Ude, located at a distance from Tbilisi. They have minimal income and just putting food on the table takes up an enormous amount of time and energy. Over the years they became accustomed to Nika’s condition and resigned themselves to the fact that he would never be healthy like other children.
Like most other children that have cleft palate that hasn’t been corrected at an early age, Nika has hearing problems and can not talk.
A doctor with the Caraps Medline clinic said that it would have been better if Nika had been operated on earlier but it was still not too late and he had a good chance of correcting any impairments.
Indeed, after a successful operation it is difficult to tell that Nika used to have a cleft palate, as his nose partition is now restored.
Since the operation Nika’s mother is more confident that Nika will be able to overcome any health problems and that he may even go to school next year.
“Now when I see all visual effects that we have from this surgery, I am more confident that his condition will improve, and I don’t want him to be isolated from children, I want to take him to school”, she says.
“The whole point of opening Area Development Programmes (ADPs) and starting sponsorship in target areas is that communities face serious challenges with development; mainly in three key areas, which are of vital importance for them: health, education and livelihood. These sectors were identified after careful assessments of the areas before sponsorship started there”, Mikheil Vardidze, Samtskhe-Javakheti ADP Manager.
Poor and outdated inventory in local kindergartens, ambulatories and schools, low capacity and lack of updated information about key issues in health, education and agriculture development are just a few of the major problems that World Vision projects will address during the coming years.
Ude village, where Nika and his family live, is still very new to the sponsorship programme as the registration has recently been finalized there. In future, Sponsorship will continue with monitoring of children involved in program and awareness raising about its integrated programming, Meanwhile, ADP implements diverse livelihood, health and education. sector activities and upcomimng future activity – rehabilitation of irrigation systems project in the area, will benefit the whole community of Ude.
In addition, all of the children, including registered sponsored children who are in the first four grades at school will receive warm clothing for the coming winter.
In the near future, World Vision’s Child Sponsorship Programme will help two more children to undergo the same type of surgeries.
“The fact that Nika underwent successful surgery is the result of successful integration in between World Vision Georgia programmes as the Health Programme staff helped Child Sponsorship to liaison with the Caraps Medline - a well-known Georgian clinic providing children with hair lip and cleft palate with free surgeries.” said Sophia Petriashvili, World Vision Georgia Child Sponsorship Manager.
Seven-year-old Nika was 17 months old when he underwent his first surgery to correct a cleft palate; a birth defect that affects the upper lip and roof of the mouth. Both a cleft lip and cleft palate can lead to problems with eating, talking and ear infections.
Surgery is the most common treatment for cleft palate. For the most part, it’s done when the child is between 12 months and 18 months old. As a child grows, he or she sometimes needs more than one operation. But the problem is normally fixed by the time a child is a teen.
But for Nika the outcome was very different. After the first surgery his family was told that Nika’s health could not be improved and they could do nothing more to help him.
Besides economic problems, families like Nika’s in rural areas lack information about health and other fields. The Kurjanashvilis live in the mountainous village of Ude, located at a distance from Tbilisi. They have minimal income and just putting food on the table takes up an enormous amount of time and energy. Over the years they became accustomed to Nika’s condition and resigned themselves to the fact that he would never be healthy like other children.
Like most other children that have cleft palate that hasn’t been corrected at an early age, Nika has hearing problems and can not talk.
A doctor with the Caraps Medline clinic said that it would have been better if Nika had been operated on earlier but it was still not too late and he had a good chance of correcting any impairments.
Indeed, after a successful operation it is difficult to tell that Nika used to have a cleft palate, as his nose partition is now restored.
Since the operation Nika’s mother is more confident that Nika will be able to overcome any health problems and that he may even go to school next year.
“Now when I see all visual effects that we have from this surgery, I am more confident that his condition will improve, and I don’t want him to be isolated from children, I want to take him to school”, she says.
“The whole point of opening Area Development Programmes (ADPs) and starting sponsorship in target areas is that communities face serious challenges with development; mainly in three key areas, which are of vital importance for them: health, education and livelihood. These sectors were identified after careful assessments of the areas before sponsorship started there”, Mikheil Vardidze, Samtskhe-Javakheti ADP Manager.
Poor and outdated inventory in local kindergartens, ambulatories and schools, low capacity and lack of updated information about key issues in health, education and agriculture development are just a few of the major problems that World Vision projects will address during the coming years.
Ude village, where Nika and his family live, is still very new to the sponsorship programme as the registration has recently been finalized there. In future, Sponsorship will continue with monitoring of children involved in program and awareness raising about its integrated programming, Meanwhile, ADP implements diverse livelihood, health and education. sector activities and upcomimng future activity – rehabilitation of irrigation systems project in the area, will benefit the whole community of Ude.
In addition, all of the children, including registered sponsored children who are in the first four grades at school will receive warm clothing for the coming winter.
In the near future, World Vision’s Child Sponsorship Programme will help two more children to undergo the same type of surgeries.
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