These Ethiopian children are ready to take the field with their donated Lincoln Youth Soccer uniforms. —Photo courtesy Heather Broglio
By Alice Waugh
Two women including Lincoln resident Heather Broglio recently spent a week in Ethiopia giving children some much-needed medical treatment—and also some Lincoln Youth Soccer uniforms.
Broglio, who is a physical therapist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and at a clinic in Concord, journeyed last month with a pediatrician to a hospital in Ethiopia that was funded and built with help from Wide Horizons for Children, a Waltham adoption agency. Both Broglio and the pediatrician have been involved with Wide Horizons since adopting Ethiopian-born children through the agency
Although Broglio had been to Ethiopia six years ago when she and her husband were adopting their son, who is now nine, “we went down there not knowing what to expect,” she said. She found that the hospital, while new, had no running water, and the Ethiopian doctors and nurses had “their way of doing medicine and we had ours.” Also, while American surgeons visit periodically to operate on patients, there are gaps in other types of care, including physical therapy for sick children.
“You have these kids who are incredibly sick and some of them are dying, but the families don’t want to touch them” because they’re afraid of causing more harm or pain, Broglio said. She reassured families about the benefits of massage and range-of-motion exercises and taught the nurses how to teach parents how to do the therapy themselves with their children.
The exercises are needed to strengthen the children’s muscles while they recover from illnesses including pneumonia, tuberculosis and malnutrition. And the kids need to be in good shape to be discharged—cars are very scarce and many patients had to walk 10 or 15 miles to get back home, Broglio said.
Broglio, who helps coach her daughter’s soccer team, noticed on her last trip to Ethiopia that the kids love soccer although proper equipment and uniforms were in short supply, “so I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to get them soccer jerseys with numbers on them?’” she said. Coincidentally, Lincoln Youth Soccer had recently redesigned its uniforms and parents were encouraged to donate old ones to children in need around the world, including in Ethiopia. Broglio brought some LYS uniforms with her and handed them out to kids at the hospital and in a nearby village.
“I so appreciate all the donations,” said Broglio, who hopes some day to go back to Ethiopia with the whole family, and maybe go on safari in neighboring Kenya while they’re at it. “It was great to see the kids faces light up when they saw them and put them on. We live in a great community!”
