HOW helps Thi, living with EB

HOW is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in the USA, whose staff consists of all volunteers. Its mission is to provide hope and care to neglected, abandoned, and orphaned children in deprived areas of the world with a specific focus on VietNam.

(Thi receives 6 month supply of EB Wound Care from Helping Orphans Worldwide, HOW) along with educational materials.

Since we HOW has been involved with EB (Epidermolysis Bullosa), which is a rare genetic skin disease that causes the skin to be so fragile that even the slightest touch will separate the layers of the skin. The skin literally breaks, resulting in painful blisters and open wounds. A mother may never be able to hold her child tightly because the skin would peel off and bleed. Children with EB may never run or play as other children because even the slightest friction will cause them great pain. EB occurs in every racial group throughout the world. Younger patients are sometimes called “Butterfly Children” because their skin is as fragile as a butterfly’s wings.

This is Thi, before she has had proper EB Wound care materials, thanks to TFF and Ping and Amy Chao Foundation and other donations HOW can continue to help. We have been given the great opportunity to help several families and some orphaned children to receive special wound care, a wonderful DVD that has been translated to Vietnamese, along with nutritional supplements and medical treatment. Last month we were told about a family with a sweet little 4 year old girl whose family had no way of treating EB and had no idea what wrong with their little girl. We will call her “Thi” and her family now has the ability to wrap her properly, to care for her and have to proper EB wound care materials with directions and assistance to help with special difficulties that come up, whereas before there was just a big question mark??? 

Thanks to HOW’s amazing donors like “The Transparent Fish Fund” and “Ping and Amy Chow Family Foundation” along with others around the world we are able to continue to help little Thi and her family and give Thi a better opportunity for a future with less pain and hopefully while so many are looking for a cure, she can live an easier life.

 Helping Orphan's Worldwide (HOW) Inc. usually will send out 6 month packages of wound care and because the families are so impoverished we seldom get photos of the children and rely on our friends in these far away provinces to visit and update us on the situations, along with our phone calls again, when possible as most of these families do not have phones.

To our delight we were able to get our shipment to Thi’s family while they had a friend visiting and could post photos to us.
We are please to introduce Thi to you all and hopefully with the next batch of wound care supplies we will see a much-improved little sweetheart and begin to see her situation improve. 

We are most grateful to all who donate and are happy to be making people more aware of EB, as we could not be a small part of these children’s lives without your help.  For more information please visit www.helpinghow.com .   You can also visit www.youtube.com/helpinghow to see videos or Huy and other children HOW assists for not only EB but our other programs as well.

Original article was written by Hilary Brown.