Bhabhisana Baby Project is celebrated 5 years in 2020 since
its establishment in 2015 speaking to Ms Faizah Toefy one of the co-founders
of the Bhabhisana Baby Project. The project consists of “highly skilled therapists who recognised the need
to help babies who come from underserved communities with early intervention
during the critical 1 000-day period.”
In
2015 the physiotherapist, occupational therapist, and a speech and language
therapist they were all working at the health sector before the
establishment of the project. That’s when they saw the long waiting list at the
hospital because there was high demand for therapy and people were waiting long
for it, Ms Toefy and her team felt babies were missing out on the
critical time, the world-wide research was showing stimulation on the first
1000 days of the baby’s life’s give them the best possible chance of developing
the brain, so they wanted to zone in on that first critical period on the first
1000 days of life. So they decided they will start this NPO and they will treat
babies while the parents are waiting for the appointments at the state hospital
they will give them that therapy so they don’t miss out on the critical time. During
the Announcement of covid-19 and when the lockdown rules where announced the bhabhisana
project was worried they won’t be able to see the babies because they used to touch
and hug them that’s how they work they will miss out on this time. Since most
of their patients travel by public transport and the babies are small and also
had some issues at the hospital which is why they needed therapy and they
couldn’t let them travel by public transport and put them at risk. So they
started using social media like WhatsApp from Video calls and sending videos to
parents on how to do the sessions with the babies. All the parents who usual
come to Bhabhisana had to have WhatsApp those couldn’t have access to WhatsApp
had to use neighbours phone or family members phone so everybody can have
access to WhatsApp. Bhabhisana Project was sending training videos via whatsapp
the parents were also sending back videos on how the babies are doing, to show
if they following properly the training video’s the organisation is sending
them. Then the therapist would analyse these videos and work out what the
babies need the NPO also provided some internet data for parents who can’t
afford it since they raised money for data cost and they managed to stay fully
in contact with the parents.
On
the 5th October 2020 Monday was the first day they saw their first
baby since March 2020 when Lockdown started. The NPO offices are at 179
Belgravia Road, Athlone, 7780, Cape Town, South Africa its easily accessible
with the public transport for the community’s like Mitchellsplain, Langa,
Nyanga, Gugulethu, Meneberg almost all the cape flats communities. They also
started a Satellite clinic at Hout-bay so that parents don’t travel so far;
they also have different connections from clinics to day hospital’s in
different community’s. The hospitals where babies are born the organisation has
a relationship with doctors to do follow ups for babies who had difficulty when
born then they refer them to the NPO since they would be identified as a high
risk baby. The process would be to work with the parent, on what is the problem
with the baby until they identify the problem. Bhabhisana also provide training
to the baby clinics for nurses the need for therapy for baby’s is getting worse
that’s why the NPO started the satellite clinic, now during the Covid 19
pandemic the therapist who are based at the hospital are helping out for the
covid -19 pandemic which makes it vulnerable for those parents who need the
therapist for their babies.
The
organisation is in need for money so they can keep the project going.
·
The Contact
details for the Organisation its:
+27 82 924 2965
Producers: Clayton Daniels & Renato Van Schalkwyk
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