This is Lydia, a seven-year-old girl from Kenya. She lives with her younger sibling and two parents, who work hard to support their family. Lydia has a serious brain tumor. It places pressure onto her skull and has led to reduced vision and an inability to walk. Her doctors say the tumor will likely be fatal if left untreated. Lydia’s father says, “I can’t imagine what my daughter is going through. I pray that she will get treatment soon and be able to live a healthy life.” For $1,500, we can fund a craniotomy, a surgery which will relieve Lydia’s intra-cranial pressure and significantly decrease her risk of death. Lydia’s father says that he “prays we will able to get her the support she needs for this surgery.” Let’s answer this hopeful father’s prayers and give his daughter back her health!

Fredelin is a five-month-old baby boy living in Haiti. His mother is a student who works as a street vendor in her spare time. Her family members are small-scale farmers in the rural countryside. A few days after Fredelin was born, his mom noticed that his head was abnormally large. Fredelin often had the flu, and vomited and cried a lot. Fredelin's mom took him to the local hospital, and doctors there sent them to the hospital in the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Doctors in Port-Au-Prince performed a CT scan and diagnosed Fredelin with hydrocephalus. His skull contains a buildup of excess cerebrospinal fluid. This buildup places extra pressure on the nerves and blood vessels in his brain, and he is at increased risk of stroke or vision loss. Fredelin's mom says, "I feel bad because Fredelin is my first child. I can’t see him suffer and I am not ready to confront these problems. It’s too much for me. I am always thinking about this situation because I am all alone. His father doesn’t want to help me with [this] because he said the baby could not survive and I often cry a lot." For $1,260, Fredelin will receive surgery to drain the excess fluid from her skull and bypass it to another part of her body. She will be at considerably less risk of paralysis or nerve damage. Let's work together to improve Fredelin's quality of life and ease her mom's worries.