International (MNN) ― CURE International is inviting you to help a child walk by simply signing a cast. For every signature completed online, an anonymous donor has agreed to provide a $5 cast for a child recovering from clubfoot surgery.
More than 200,000 children born in developing countries this year will have clubfoot. If they do not receive treatment for the condition, they will miss occupational, educational, and social opportunities.
For a child suffering from clubfoot, walking on the misshapen feet is painful, difficult, and sometimes impossible. The condition can be corrected without surgery before the age of two, but few children in developing countries are treated for clubfoot. In the developed world, by contrast, clubfoot has been eradicated as a lasting disability.
CURE Clubfoot Worldwide is an initiative to eradicate clubfoot globally. In the next ten years, it plans to eradicate clubfoot through 100 countrywide programs. It already operates teaching hospitals in 11 developing-world countries, which mainly focus on helping children with congenital disorders and disabilities. It plans to open four more hospitals by the end of 2009, including a hospital in Ethiopia that is opening this year.
To achieve its goal, CURE plans to use the Ponseti Method, which is the recognized standard for treating clubfoot without surgery. Over a period of two months, children under two years old with clubfoot can be corrected by means of manipulation and the application of plaster casts. CURE has established a partnership with the International Ponseti Association to standardize its use of this method.
Since its founding in 1996, CURE has performed 46,000 operations and seen nearly as many people come to Christ. It endeavors to transform health care in Third-World countries, bringing it up to First-World standards. Click here if you would like to sign a cast and help a child walk.
