We’ve been talking about how treatment for clubfoot can change the lives of babies born with this deformity of the feet. In a country where hospitals and doctors abound, your prognosis is good for finding a medical professional trained in the Ponseti method who can help correct your child’s feet without surgery, but what if you were a farming family living in rural Nicaragua? That’s where miraclefeet can make a difference.
This organization is the brain-child of Chesca Colloredo-Mansfield and Roger and Bridget Ryan Berman. In 2006, they separately began thinking about how to bring the Ponseti method of treatment to children in countries around the world, and in 2010 the organization was officially registered in North Carolina. At this point (fall 2015), miraclefeet supports over 100 clinics in partnership with 25 groups in 12 countries, and has helped over 10,000 children.
If you look around our website or come to our office, you know our passion at Southern California Foot & Ankle Specialists for correcting this deformity so children can run, play, and develop normally instead of struggling with a disability all their lives. We want that for our patients, but we want to expand the opportunity to children in other countries as well. That’s why we are teaming up with Jill Harold of Clubfoot Community of California and Tony Spineto the Clubfoot Triathlete to raise funds for miraclefeet.
This organization is very dear to Dr. Rodriguez because of their efforts in Nicaragua, the country where she was born. The challenges of doing this in one of the poorest countries in the world, and in a highly politicized environment, are daunting, but we feel this organization has been the most effective at designing a program that is sustainable in such conditions.
So stay tuned! When plans for the fundraiser are finalized we’ll post another blog with the details. In the meantime, watch these videos or read these stories to be inspired and start saving up the money now to bring hope to children in Nicaragua and other regions around the world.