Tess Unlim­it­ed

Cleft Lip & Palate Care

While vol­un­teer­ing in a pub­lic hospital’s post-natal recov­ery ward in Guatemala, Tess de Goede de Ordoñez learned that chil­dren there are not treat­ed for cleft lips and palates. Nor were there any NGOs in the coun­try at the time help­ing the rough­ly 3500 chil­dren born local­ly each year in need of these life-chang­ing surg­eries. So she found­ed Tess Unlim­it­ed, which not only arranges surg­eries for chil­dren, but offers sev­er­al pro­grammes (e.g. den­tistry) that pro­vide a high­er like­li­hood of suc­cess while help­ing chil­dren & their fam­i­lies adjust to the mul­ti­tude of asso­ci­at­ed challenges.

Psy­cho­log­i­cal Guidance

There is a major stig­ma in Guatemala attached to chil­dren born with cleft lips or palates. Tra­di­tion­al­ly they are seen as ​“pun­ish­ments from God.” So hav­ing the surgery can mean all the dif­fer­ence between hav­ing a nor­mal life and being an out­cast. One of the asso­ci­at­ed projects is psy­cho­log­i­cal coun­sel­ing, which helps par­ents and chil­dren deal with their feel­ings of fear, shame, guilt and soci­etal judgement.

Surgery, Trans­port & Fam­i­ly Stays

They arrange surg­eries with qual­i­fied med­ical teams of sur­geons, anaes­the­si­ol­o­gists and nurs­es, often comb­ing local exper­tise with vol­un­teers from abroad. They also ful­ly cov­er trans­porta­tion for chil­dren and their fam­i­lies from around Guatemala and hotel stays near the hos­pi­tal when the chil­dren have their surgeries.

Tess Unlim­it­ed

For more information visit: https://tessunlimited.nl/en/