The beginning of a beautiful blessing...

The Havens: an orphanage in Kalomo, Zambia, South Africa located at the Namwianga Missions. The Havens are made up of three houses:
Haven 1 has "the itty bitty babies" and "the bloomers" which are ages newborn to 2 years.
Haven 2 has the older kids who are polishing up on their language in order to go back home to their families.
Haven 3 has the babies who are sick or recovering from sickness so that they are isolated from the other kids to keep anything from spreading.
Aunties: the wonderful women who work at the Havens and take care of the babies throughout the day. They play with them, feed them, change them, and love them so much!

On Friday, May 17th, our group made our first trip over to the Havens to meet the Aunties, tour the different buildings, and of course play with the babies for a little bit. While we were there we unloaded and presented the donations to the Aunties and Meagan (the awesome director of the Havens). These were donations of clothes, toys, Bumbos (huge hit!), diaper covers, and so much more! (Pictures below)

During our first visit our eyes were opened to the differences between the American culture and African culture. Babies ride on the backs of the Aunties, they are pulled up off the ground by the arm, they aren't burped after feeding, you should always greet everyone in the room individually and not as a whole, women must wear skirts in public so as not to present themselves in a sexual manner, and cloth diapers or "nappies" are used for the babies.

Today we had our first official day of therapy at the Havens. We were split into two groups of three to do Feeding/Swallowing and Language. Courtney, Jake and I were in the Feeding/Swallowing group with our supervisor Caroline Martin. Rachel, Makala, and Staci were in the Language group with supervisors Kara Britt and Sara Shock.

In the feeding and swallowing group we worked on assessing specific children in each Haven (that were picked out by Meagan) for developmental milestones. For feeding and swallowing we assessed their non-nutritive suck (strength of the oral muscles when given resistance with pacifier), how many sucks per breath they take when eating from a bottle, and if they had any anterior liquid loss (formula leaking from the side of the mouth while feeding). We also assessed each groups gross motor skills and pre-language skills. For gross motor skills we were looking for whether each child could hold their head steady at the shoulder, sitting with support, holding head up during tummy time, putting head to chest during tummy time, holding head up and on forearms during tummy time, rolling from back to belly, rolling belly to back, sitting independently, creeping on tummy, and crawling on hands and knees. Language milestones that were assessed were searching for the speakers first, social smile, tracking objects, turning to a voice, batting or reaching for objects, cooing, putting object to mouth, laughing, oral play (playing with objects near/in mouth), babbling, and cononocated babbling. We began working on oral motor stretches using the Beckman Oral Motor Exercises. These consisted of a buccal rub (on the cheeks), C-stretches (C shaped stretch on inside/outside of cheek), and labio stretches (stretches of the upper and lower lip). These exercises assist in increasing sensory intake of the oral mechanism, working on tone in the oral mechanism (hypertonicity and hypotonicity), and awakening nerves in the oral mechanism for facial paralysis.

In the language group they worked on evaluating children from each Haven on similar milestones as listed above. In Haven 2, the older house, they assessed whether the kids were talking and walking. They also sang songs, worked on animals, and played with the children to get to know them better.

After our lunch break, our groups switched and finished assessing the children that still needed evaluating. Meagan has told us that the children at the Havens are the best they have ever been right now, which became so much more evident when we began assessing and realized that only a handful of the children would actually quality for therapy if they were in America.

Today was long and busy, but such a blessing. Loving on babies and knowing you are making a difference in lives is a wonderful thing. The babies may not realize how much of a difference they are making in our lives and how much of a blessing they are...but they are!

Blessings,
Brittany Starkey