January 2011

Volunteers: Let’s start with introducing you to our new volunteers for 2011! Renske, who has been with us for the past 4 months, will be volunteering for T.E.S.S. for at least another 6 months. She will be handling volunteer coordination and helping in our Educational Centre and KIDS restaurant. Tom, Tessa’s brother, will handle the volunteer coordination together with Renske and he will be teaching English, Art and Music in our Centre. Tom also has plans to build a library within our Educational Centre! Then there is Paige, our volunteer from the United States. She will be staying with us for 1 year and work with Tessa on the ‘make a child smile’ project. Volunteers Didy & Laurette are coming to visit us for the second time and volunteer Tanja will be here in February, for the fourth time in two years!!! This makes us beam with pride!

Unfortunately our volunteers can’t stay forever and on the 19th of January we had to say goodbye to Annemiek, who helped us here for 3 months. Another goodbye was said to Lydian, who went back home on the 1st of February after being with us for 5 months! Thanks girls!

Promoters: Since the beginning of the year, T.E.S.S. is working with 3 promoters. They will be actively looking for children with a cleft lip and/or open palate. Their job involves tracking down these children, making appointments for evaluation, maintaining contact with the patients and making sure that they will show up on the days when they have their surgery.

Pictures: In December of 2010, Yvonne Altena, professional photographer and close friend to Tessa, visited Guatemala for 3 weeks. She took a lot of pictures, some of which you will find in our newsletters and on our website. You can also visit her website: www.yvalfo.nl

Doctor Asencio: We have some very good news! Doctor Asencio is a plastic surgeon from Guatemala, who has been operating on children with a cleft lip for over 38 years. He owns his own private clinic here in Antigua. His prices range from €500, – to €800, – per surgery, which is not something the people here can afford and we feel is an amount unfairly high to ask of our sponsors. After T.E.S.S. met with Dr. Ascencio he was so impressed with our work, that from now on T.E.S.S. can send him children for €150,- per operation! This means that we no longer only depend on foreign medical teams! The first 3 children are scheduled for surgery this February.

OPERATION WEEK 9th OF JANUARY 2011

In the week of January 9th 8 kids got their cleft lip and/or open palate surgery. The surgical team ‘Medical Mission for Children´ from the United States, came to the Hermano Pedro Hospital to perform the surgeries. Everything went very well and the results speak for themselves. Here are some of the pictures!

EVALUATION WEEK 16th – 20th OF JANUARY 2011

On Sunday the 16th of January we left with an amazing team of volunteers to Huehuetenango, a province in the North-West of Guatemala. Victor, our coordinator, had already done some preliminary work like: making contact with the local health stations, putting up posters, handing out flyers and even recording a radio transmission. He really took charge to let the people know that we were coming. After a long 25 hour drive, 4 villages, 2 full tanks of gas, icy cold hostels, dirt roads, big potholes, going uphill and going downhill, we returned after 5 days with a great result: 40 children who desperately need our help, 31 of whom have a cleft lip and/or open palate. So all in all a week to be proud of! Of those 31 children, we were able to plan 30 for surgery in May with the American team ‘Smile Network.’ They are coming especially for T.E.S.S.! The other kids are being submitted into the Hermano Pedro Hospital because of severe malnutrition and some have been referred to other medical teams because we also encountered children with facial burns and facial tumours.

KIDS restaurant & Educational Centre

In December and January we worked very hard in our Educational Centre and KIDS restaurant. We painted, cleaned and fixed the whole building, you won’t recognize it anymore!
We now have a real kitchen, cozy classrooms, a super-colourful staircase, a real fully furnished restaurant with 5 tables, 20 chairs & a real chef statute which we put outside when the guest arrive!

Friday the 31st we had our opening day to welcome everybody and register new students for class. We are offering classes in English, computers, mathematics, reading, cooking, arts & crafts and our newest classes are reading & writing for adults, theatre for kids, biology, music and cooking classes for mothers from the surrounding villages! We took over 200 registrations and are fully booked!

On Friday the 4th of February the restaurant will be open for the very first time. The kids are inviting their parents for the opening to help celebrate this joyous occasion! Starting the 11th of February, the restaurant will be open to everybody and we welcome you all to come and have dinner here! If you are interested, please visit our special website: www.kidsrestaurant.org, or directly make a reservation by sending an e-mail to: kidsrestaurant@gmail.com.