Sarah’s Covenant Homes (SCH) in India cares for 163 children and young adults with special and medical needs. Their tiniest children are just a few months old, and they have young adults who are learning skills to be more independent in daily living. The children have various diagnoses including, but not limited to: cerebral palsy, blindness, seizure disorder, hearing loss, autism, spina bifida, and hydrocephalus. SCH is committed to providing the best quality care for these children, including surgeries, schooling, medicines and daily care.
This quality care comes at a high cost, and choices have to be made on an extremely tight budget. This means choosing between diapers, food, and medical care. These children are all previously abandoned, and rescued from government orphanages where they experienced neglect and an inability to meet their unique needs.
Our partnership with SCH-India (and our other partner agencies) is to be a basic needs provider. Our partner agencies are the “boots on the ground”. By having us focus on the often overlooked basic need of diapers, they are able to focus their time and energy in day to day care for these precious children.
Here at Jake’s Diapers, we partner with ministries & agencies who are working on addressing the root causes of poverty. It is imperative that we do not create dependence, but instead provide a hand up out of poverty. Sarah’s Covenant Homes offers family style homes for children instead of orphanage care for previously abandoned children. This style of care is helping children with special needs reach their full potential. While in the care of SCH, children are able to receive specialized medical care, including surgeries that are necessary. Sadly, children in need of surgeries are less likely to be adopted. By having these surgeries addressed, these children are at an increased likelihood of adoption and reaching their full potential.
Solution:
Cloth diaper donations from Jake’s Diapers saves Sarah’s Covenant Homes hundreds of dollars every month, allowing them to use that money for the kids’ other basic needs, including medical/health care. Our partnership with SCH began in October of 2015, with a small pilot project to see if and how cloth diapers would work in SCH’s situation. Our results were quite positive! Cloth diapers were well received by the nannies and caregivers. Given the success of our 2015 pilot project, we’ve been expanding to reach more of SCH’s foster homes, thus increasing financial savings.
Introduction to modern cloth diapers at launch of our Pilot Project!
Getting started…
Success!
Diapers are an integral piece of the puzzle to working on orphan prevention and family preservation. Together, we can solve diaper need and serve these babies with the basic needs that all humans deserve, regardless of location and place of birth. All lives have equal value, and poverty knows no geographic boundaries.
There can be no better testimony to the value provided than the fact that SCH has worked with us for years, steadily replacing disposable diapers with cloth in more of their foster homes.
Disposable diapers can cost upwards of $1,000 USD per year per child. Our goal with this fundraising project is to provide 120 cloth diapers to 12 children. To use disposable diapers for these children would run around $12,000 USD, for just one year. Cloth diapers have a minimum life span of two years. This project is in the amount of $2154, a significant cost savings.
The environmental impact of this project is a reduction in garbage of up to 12,000 lbs or 6 tons of garbage per year. Each child in disposable diapers generates over 1,000 lbs of garbage that takes a minimum of 300 years to decompose.
Other benefits include overall cost savings and environmental impact. Depending upon the needs of our partner agency, we are working to provide basic sanitation and hygiene training, including the importance of appropriate diaper usage. At Sarah’s Covenant Homes, they are highly educated on basic sanitation and hygiene training. They also have washing machines, so the time impact with cloth diapers is just an extra load of laundry.
Impact:
The most significant direct impact of switching to cloth diapers for SCH is the financial savings. These savings in turn increase available funds for better health and medical care for these special needs babies, children, and young adults. This includes surgeries and specialized medical treatments. These procedures improve the functional outcomes for these children, and importantly increase the likelihood of family re-unification or adoption.
Meet Emerald.
{Please note India law prohibits internet pictures showing identifying features of children up for adoption}
At just 7 months old, Emerald is one of the youngest children in the care of SCH India. Emerald has a cleft palate and was aspirating milk and having trouble gaining weight as an infant. This week, Emerald is having surgery to get a g-tube placed so she will have a better and safer way to get nutrition until she is strong enough for her palate to be repaired. The cloth diapers donated for this little lady frees SCH’s funds to go towards her very expensive surgery and medical care; rather than on the constant expense of disposable diapers.
Meet Zack.
Zack is a very smiley little boy who is about to turn 3 years old! He lives at SCH in Hyderabad, India. He was originally sent to SCH’s care due to his spina bifida and hydrocephalus, which had been left untreated and therefore causing many complications for his tiny body. Zack now has a shunt for his hydrocephalus and is receiving PT to help him become more mobile and to work on holding his head up for longer periods of time. Zack loves morning preschool time and motions to songs with no help! Due to Zack’s spina bifida, he needs the support of diapers for longer than most. With a steady supply of diapers, precious funds can now be allocated for his specialized therapy.
