“Our son is one year and eight months old. He has a twin sister and three older siblings, but he is the only one who was born with a cleft lip and palate. When Abdii was born we didn’t know how to feel to be honest, we didn’t know what it was and we were worried it had something to do with a curse. We started to ask around and we met a doctor who told us it can happen to children all over the world and that the cause is not known exactly, but reassured us that is was not our fault. My wife admitted to me then that her uncle was also affected by cleft lip and palate.”
— Father
“I couldn’t breast feed with him at all. Every time I tried the milk would just come back out of his nose and mouth. I was worried so I visited nurses at the health office and they said to give him formula, he became stronger and now he can eat other foods. ”
— Mother
“We heard about Project Harar from our neighbours who saw a segment on the OBN news channel — that Project Harar would be organising for families affected by cleft in rural areas to reach treatment — for free. We contacted Project Harar and they told us where to go and when. We are so happy that our son has now received treatment, before we heard about Project Harar we were planning to sell everything we we had — even know we didn’t have much— to afford private treatment before he came of school age. Thank you for the opportunity that you gave, not only to my son, but for all the other children here, it’s a blessing for us all.”
