Mentors, firends brave disease to help children
College students travel to countries infested with AIDS, malaria and other threatening diseases and come together with one purpose in mind – to help children.
Abandoned children all around the world are suffering social and economic deprivation, and Orphanage Support Services Organization (OSSO) isn’t letting them go unnoticed. Barrie Brewer, chief of the Board of Directors, said OSSO is a non-profit humanitarian organization which sends groups of volunteers to either Africa or South America to work in the orphanages there. OSSO has established program sites located in Nairobi, Kenya; Kampala, Uganda; Cuenca, Ecuador; and Quito, Ecuador.
Dr. Rex Head and his wife Melodie of Rexburg, Idaho, started the organization and took the first group of volunteers to Cuenca in the spring of 1998, Brewer said. OSSO has continued to expand ever since.
OSSO concentrates on nurturing infants and toddlers so they learn how to give and receive love, Brewer said.
“They get hands on, direct, one-on-one, personalized attention,” Brewer said.
In Cuenca, for example, the orphanages are run by Catholic nuns, of which there are two for every 25 infants, Brewer said. The babies are never held, he said, and such circumstances lead to social and developmental retardation that could threaten society.
Starfish Enrichment Society is a division of OSSO that targets older children and exposes them to dance, art, music and vocational education, Brewer said. Furthermore, OSSO sponsors the Stay Alive program of HIV/AIDS prevention education for children in Africa. According to the World Health Report for 2000, AIDS is the leading cause of death in Africa.
Kathy Kay Brewer of the OSSO Board of Directors said 93 percent of the babies in African orphanages are HIV positive. Barrie Brewer said OSSO is trying to combat these statistics and is already seeing a reduction in Uganda. But the organization’s primary concern is nurture, Barrie said.
Kathy Kay said, “I love how [OSSO] brings people from all over the United States together for one purpose – to serve children.”
Volunteers work somewhere between 25 and 60 hours per week, usually seven days per week, Kathy Kay said. She remembers teaching the children to brush their teeth.
“Their teeth were rotting out of their little mouths,” she said.
Oftentimes, the orphanages smelled bad or the children were dirty, but the volunteers really learned to love them, Kathy Kay said.
Amber Steckly, OSSO office manager, said, “We teach them to smile. We teach them to laugh. We teach them how to hug.”
Steckly said other volunteer responsibilities include feeding, changing diapers and teaching music, dance and social skills.
According to the OSSO Web site, located at www.ossohumanitarian.org, volunteers are required to observe a strict code of conduct. They abide by a curfew and are prohibited from dating or using alcohol and drugs. Those who violate the rules may be sent home. Volunteers who are sent home don’t get a refund of their $2,900 to $3,400 donation/contribution fee. As the Web site explains, the fee pays for the volunteer’s airfare, room and board and other necessary expenditures.
Andrea Campbell, a Utah State University senior studying music therapy, will be going to Quito this summer with OSSO. Volunteers are encouraged to find sponsors to help pay their fees and, subsequently, help the orphans, she said. Campbell said she looks forward to touching the lives of the children in Ecuador and to achieving personal growth.
“I want the children to know they are people of worth, and that we believe in them and that they can succeed,” Campbell said.
Although she welcomes the opportunity, she acknowledges that she will be out of her comfort zone, Campbell said. Kathy Kay said volunteers are often forced to deal with dysentery and lice and they have to watch what they eat and drink, because the water is full of sewage. She said living in a developing country can give the volunteers a culture shock, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.
During Kathy Kay’s second trip to Ecuador, she said she saw some of the children practicing the things she had previously taught them, such as brushing their teeth and washing their hands.
Barrie said the benefits of OSSO are measurable, because the organization can track an individual’s progress by utilizing assessment tools.
“No other program exposes young adults to a child development laboratory of this magnitude,” he said.
Vonda Jump, a USU graduate student, is currently researching child development in an Ecuador orphanage. Barrie said OSSO is working to facilitate such internship opportunities for students as an added benefit.
Once children have received the benefits of OSSO, they are more likely to be adopted, Barrie said. In Ecuador, 12 to 15 percent of the children get adopted, he said.
Kathy Kay said, “I can’t say enough good about the program. It changes people’s lives.”
Information on how to serve in the orphanages is available on the organization’s Web site and should be accessed by those who want to help OSSO advance its goal for “changing lives one child at a time.”