HOPE for Young Girl with Cystic Fibrosis
An emotional account of how Project HOPE's donations of medicine for Cystic Fibrosis are helping a young girl and her family in Kosovo.
Kosovo, June 28, 2016By: Angel Jordanovski, Program Manager, Project HOPE Macedonia
In my almost five years working for Project HOPE – visiting hospitals, meeting and talking with patients – I have heard a lot of stories about how our programs have helped people. The stories I have heard have provoked both smiles and sadness in me. I will share with you the most emotional moment I have experienced, which happened just two months ago.
After a couple of months of hard work, we manage to obtain a donation of medicine for Cystic Fibrosis intended for 25 children in Kosovo suffering from the rare disease. The medicine is expensive and nonexistent in the local market. The parents of these children had been struggling to secure the medicine they needed.
A representative from the pharmaceutical company that donated the medicine visited our program site to witness firsthand the impact their donations had made. Together with Kosovo’s Ministry of Health, we personally delivered the medicine to a few of the families.
The first child we visited was the smartest 10-year-old girl I have ever met. She spoke perfect English and had the sense of humor of an adult. Her parents had sold most of their property to provide the therapy she needed. And they have two other kids to feed. They were emotional and crying from the moment we entered their home because they knew why we were there. The little girl kept smiling the whole time. I couldn’t stop the tears in my eyes, when the woman from the donor company gave the child and her family the three bottles of medicine she would need to cover her therapy for the rest of the year. You could see the smiles and HOPE behind the tears of the whole family. It was a reminder of why Project HOPE exists.