Meet some special kids

Octavio is 8 years old. His mother, a single parent, works as a security guard at a hospital to support Octavio and his younger brother.

Octavio came to Centro de Crecimiento in 2001 with a somewhat uncertain diagnosis. Now, the director of the Center Salvador Iván León Martínez and the medical staff have determined that Octavio suffers from autism spectrum disorder.

Thanks to the treatment and care he has received from the staff of the Center plus the work of his own family, Octavio has grown and his quality of life has increased. We gave him his new computer at the start of this school year. He can now learn new things, strengthen his language skills and much more. You can see how happy this gift has made Octavio!

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Rosa is a top notch student. She has been using the computer at her high school and plans to go to college.

Recently, her school said Rosa had to keep the keyboard and mouse on the table next to the monitor. Not an unreasonable request except that Rosa was born without arms.

So, we gave her a computer and now she has the monitor on a table at home and the mouse and keyboard on the floor.

Rosa is a remarkable young woman. She wrote the thank you note reproduced here.

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Marlene has a congenital heart malfunction that causes her to black out without warning. She is a good student when she can attend school. She walks to school with friends who run back home to get her mother when she faints on the way to school. Her dad spends the summer working in the states. She has two younger brothers and two younger sisters. These circumstances put a big load on her mom.

When we delivered a computer to her home some 20 miles from San Miguel her mother said, " I prayed Maria could have a computer and you have answered my prayers."

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Juan Jose has spina bifida. He is dependent on his parents and his brothers and sisters to feed him and to wheel him to the out house and to take care of and clean up after him.

Can you imagine his joy when we gave him a computer and loaded it with educational software and games appropriate for his younger brothers and sisters? Now it is pay back time. He tutors his siblings in school subjects and helps them play computer games. For the first time in his life he is a contributing member of his family. He has a crippled body but now he has a sense of dignity and self worth.