Please Donate: 9 year-old requires jaw surgery

Our partner charity, Para el Mundo (PaM), is scrambling to raise $2500 USD to provide emergency dental surgery for 9 year-old Daniel Castillo of Máncora, a small fishing town on the northern coast of Peru. Daniel is suffering from a painful cyst in his right maxilla; this progressed from an abscess that has gone untreated due to the family’s inability to pay for proper care. The bone is now involved, and the cyst is putting pressure on the adjacent teeth, causing him extreme discomfort. Daniel is well known and loved by PaM's Peruvian and Canadian staff and the international volunteers who have worked in Máncora. His Parents are both teachers raising him and his 3 siblings. Daniel’s father, Lucho, frequently has to make the overnight bus journey to the capital Lima where teaching work is available, and his mother Fanny struggles to make ends meet, working as a seamstress and craftswoman and making cakes and desserts for the tourist industry, while raising the children practically on her own.

Despite increasing tourism in Peru, most Peruvians live in extreme poverty, particularly on the northern coast, where a once thriving fishing industry has all but collapsed. Medical care is expensive and difficult to access, dental care even more so, and there is no publicly-funded health or dental care available for Daniel. Josh Hehner, PaM's Director for Community Medicine Programs says, "Only the richest have insurance, and so if we can’t raise the money to help, Daniel will have to live in extreme pain and discomfort and put his health at risk, or the family will have to take extreme measures to find the funds. We don’t even want to think about what this might mean, because they don’t own any property, have few possessions, and the family already lives in a very cramped space."

PaM is urgently requesting all sympathetic acquaintances, those in the dental profession, and past volunteers who have been touched by the kind spirit and community involvement of the Castillo family, to please give what they can to pay for Daniel’s care. Even the smallest amount is helpful.

Para el Mundo is a registered charity in Canada, the U.S.A and Peru. Their community liaison staff will make sure that 100% of any donation goes directly to Daniel’s dental and medical treatment. Ways to donate can be found here on the PaM website. They will then transfer the money to the staff in Peru who will oversee the disbursement. If you provide a mailing address and name when you donate, they will send you a tax-deductable receipt for your donation.

Danielle Lafond, one of PaM's Directors and a founder, adds,"PaM exists to help the community, but also to alleviate suffering in individuals. This child, Daniel, is very close to our hearts, and needs our help."