By Melissa Platt | Sam's Mum, Co-Founder & Trustee
The beautiful Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pieces of pottery are mended with powdered lacquer dusted with gold, silver or platinum speaks to the symbolism for me of life, especially where loss and tragedy rocks our very core. When Sam died our hearts were broken into a million pieces, but through the legacy of the Footprints 4 Sam Trust, which touches the lives of beneficiaries daily, our hearts are slowly being transformed from a messy and battered palp into a new art of being.
As a backdrop to this symbolism, the Neonatal ICU (NICU) renovation, has become a legacy project that continues to make our hearts whole and I am very pleased to report that our consultant and architectural team is making incredible progress with the NICU plans and designs. The Professional Team consists of a group of the most incredibly gifted and committed consultants who have all dedicated themselves selflessly to this project so far. (I have included dropbox links below which give some insight into the calibre of this team and their experience, as well as a presentation pack showing the project and the design work done so far).
Needless to say the budgets and feasibilities have been updated and we are now at a point where we can start approaching key donors and charitable foundations to dig deep. (Please share this link with anyone you think may wish to join us in saving precious lives through this significant renovation project). The quantum of the project is now sitting at around 5.5 million dollars, which means we have our fundraising work cut out for us. That said, we know this is just the beginning as we continue to transform this hospital in the most profound way, so that the beauty within (i.e. the patients, health professionals and team members that serve them) is reflected by the wards themselves.
As we raise funds, we want to take this moment to thank everyone for all their incredible contributions. Even though the process for fundraising will take time, the work of the Trust and the support of the hospital continues in a meaningful way. Since we last reported, we delivered 180 Footprints 4 Sam Super Hero Food and Toiletry Buckets to the various government hospitals we support and the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital received a significant amount of these. Each Food Bucket provides for about 168 meals, which means with the 140 Food Buckets donated we provided for over 23 000 meals. Support initiatives were also run to continue supporting the health professionals emotionally, as they face the overwhelm of the care they give daily to their patients.
We hope you enjoy reviewing the hospital design plans so far. I want to applaud the consultant team for all their hard work and dedication. It has taken many months of hard work to get us to this point and as the brokenness of these hospital spaces are transformed on the pages of these designs and by the gold of the work of the Trust, supported by your donations, we know that the final result will be a true artwork to behold. As I write this we are busy with Government and Management approvals and permissions.
Thank you for supporting us, as we work hard to transform the scars to something beautiful and lifesaving! As we raise sufficient funds we look forward to moving from concept and design into action and delivery.
Warmest wishes,
Melissa
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
