All one team

The United Nations Children's Fund estimates that worldwide more than 153,000,000 children have lost one or both parents.

There are an estimated 9 to 14 million children living in orphanages in China. In the small country of Guatemala, 370,000 orphans are spread out through institutions, and 5,000 of them walk the streets, begging, in the capital city. Rwanda, still reeling from the 1993 genocide which wiped out between 1 and 2 million adults and children, has 825,000 orphans in a country with only 10 million people.

Seven million special needs orphans worldwide are institutionalized without proper access to what Americans consider basic health care, education and nutrition, according to UNISEF.

But there's a group of local healthcare workers hoping to make a change in these children's lives.

TEAMworks, a Fayetteville-based nonprofit, is a group of physical, occupational and speech therapists seeking to improve the lives and futures of special needs children locally and internationally.

The organization is comprised of three divisions: Team Talent and Heroes for Kids, which serve local children with special needs, and TEAMworks International, serving children with special needs in Guatemala, China, Ukraine and soon Rwanda.

Over the last several years, TEAMworks International has sent a group of local volunteers to three countries providing therapies, support, education and equipment to children housed primarily in institutions where care and conditions are below American standards.

Kym Hannah, pediatric physical therapist, established Children's Therapy TEAM in Fayetteville in 2000, and soon after took the first team to Ukraine. Hannah's commitment to these special needs children soared when she met a little girl named Myrah in one of these institutions, she said.

"This beautiful encounter took place on a TEAM initiated medical outreach to an orphanage housing children with special needs in Kramatorsk, Ukraine," Kym's husband, Kevin Hannah, said.

Although little Myrah was receiving adequate care, she was not thriving. The 4-year-old weighed only 21 pounds, he said, and was receiving little stimulation and almost no therapy.

"There were approximately 350 children at this institution during the time she (Myrah) was there, and the room she was in had approximately 25 kids," Kevin Hannah said. "These children were confined to their beds 24 hours a day."

The couple ultimately adopted Myrah in 2007, followed by a 3-year-old Chinese orphan they named Allie in 2010.

Their daughter Embrey was born in 2011, and although their family is complete, they continue to travel overseas and facilitate the involvement of volunteers in TEAMworks International.

One such volunteer is Fayetteville speech therapist Paige Funkhouser, who traveled to Guatemala with the nonprofit this past fall. She said she too sees the need for improved conditions in these understaffed institutions, as well as a need for additional aid for special needs children living in poverty-stricken private homes.

"We visited families with children with special needs around Guatemala City, and the conditions these children lived in were just terrible," she said. "There was no running water, no access to basic health care. We worked with the families directly to help improve these children's lives."

Life in the Guatemalan orphanages was not much better, she said.

"The orphanages are clean and have running water, but they are understaffed," Funkhouser said. "The caregivers have a great love for these children, but they don't have time to spend nurturing them. Most of the kids while I was there were lying in their beds the whole time because of the shortage in staff."

The mother of two young children has seen the same conditions during a trip to China, she said, where children experience "little to no stimulation on a daily basis."

Rogers speech-language pathologist and TEAM chief operating officer Cindy Watson traveled to China with TEAMworks in November of 2013 and said the children in the state-run institutions were being cared for but suffering without adequate attention.

"The children were clean and didn't have any terrible diaper rash or anything, but they were malnourished," the founding member of TEAM said. "You could tell the staff really loved them and cared for them, but they just didn't have to time to spend with these children."

The orphanage was three floors, with one nanny looking after 30 to 40 children, she said. But unlike what she expected, the institution was not the bustling cacophony of children crying for attention.

It was nearly silent, she said.

"There was very little crying," Watson said quietly. "They learned from a young age that crying out didn't get them any attention. The children were very quiet. It was sad."

Both Watson and Funkhouser will travel internationally with TEAMworks again this spring, and although excited to continue their work and relationships with the children and care workers in these countries, they have a lot to do before they leave.

TEAMworks is a nonprofit organization, but it does not have enough revenue to send multiple teams overseas many times a year, Funkhouser said.

So the volunteers send themselves.

"In the past, we'd get together as a team and decide how to raise the funds," Funkhouser said. "TEAMworks pays for about half, but we are responsible for the rest."

These fundraisers were successful, says Kevin Hannah, but they weren't necessarily fair. So the group has designed a new plan.

Starting Friday, the volunteers of TEAMworks International will host a year of joint fundraisers, beginning with a Parents' Night Out at the Children's Therapy Team locations in Fayetteville and Bentonville. Children with special needs and without will have the opportunity to play games, have snacks and do crafts at this "Frozen" themed event.

"At Easter, we hold a very popular event where people can come get their Easter pictures done," Kevin Hannah said. The organization will also host a 5K race and fun run, a fall photo shoot and special needs expo to help fund the multiple annual trips.

"The more money we can raise, the more people we can send, the more equipment we can take with us, the more children we can help," Watson said. "We all feel we are sent by God to do this and that we are right where we need to be.

"They may live in other countries, but these children are important," she continued. "They don't get the same attention as other children because they are seen as different. But we are all different in our different ways."

NAN Our Town on 01/29/2015