CARE, The Community Agency for Rehabilitation and Education for people with disabilities in Belize- today opened the doors to a new center for its operations.
This afternoon the new organization that caters to the needs of 75 children with disabilities as a result of diseases like cerebral palsy and others took time out to inaugurate the new center.
CARE's Director Dolores Godfrey told us what work will be carried out from this central location.
Dolores Godfrey, CARE Director
"From here we intend to manage a program nationally. That program is to deliver services to children from birth to 6 years old who are physically disabled."
"From here we can do planning and coordinate with all our field officers. We have field officers in P.G., Cayo, and in Belize Districts and next month we will start in Orange Walk. So we need one central place where we can coordinate and we do a lot of teaching. We must teach our field officers about physical therapy so we need a central place we can bring them to and have workshops and seminars for them."
"We have been open for less than a year and a half and we are kept as busy as we can go."
Alfonso Noble,
"What kind of disabilities are we looking at?"
Dolores Godfrey,
"We looking at cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy and generally a number of disabilities that are called developmental delays in which the child is not developing in the way that it is expected. We are talking mainly about mobility."
"One of the main things we do is teach the parent of the child to help the child in the process of rehabilitation and then we can step out of the picture and let the family take over."
Hon. Said Musa,
"I am very pleaded and I congratulate CARE for the work they have been doing. It's a very young organization - it only started in May of 2002 and already they are doing great work in the Belize and Toledo districts with children. And I understand they will be moving soon to Orange Walk so I think it's a very needed and important work they are doing."
The office is located at 25 Gabourel Lane in Belize City.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited for the internet by Keith Swift