Goodwill Ambassadors: Elkin Enrique Fonseca Zapata Returns Home to Nicaragua

By Janet Foerster, CHESS Program Director - Click here to download PDF version.

Direct engagement with the children, families and elders of the participating communities is an essential aspect of our culturally focused project management strategies. In October 2006, Janet Foerster, President of innerCHANGE associates international and Project Director for CHESS was conducting a preliminary site visit to one of the 12 target community schools of Villa El Carmen. During this visit, Ms. Foerster met Miriam del Socorro Araica, the grandmother of eight-year old Elkin Enrique Fonseca Zapata. Elkin had fallen from a tree 14 months prior and had hit a fence post that fractured his larynx and transected his trachea. Elkin was emergently operated on in Managua, but because the country does not have ENT surgeons with expertise to handle this type of injury, and the family has no healthcare, Elkin was left with a metal tracheotomy device and very little medical care or follow-up treatment. Miriam Araica, the grandmother, entreated the CHESS project to help her grandson, one of five children (ages 5-12) under her care after their mother died three years ago.

In January 2007, during the Gran Pacifica annual shareholder’s meeting in Managua, Dr. Edward Barksdale, Associate Professor of Surgery of Children’s Hospital of of Pittsburgh was appraised of Elkin’s situation.

He provided an on-site medical examination of Elkin in his home in Villa El Carmen, and subsequently presented this as a potential humanitarian global health care case to The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, one of two preeminent centers in the United States for Laryngo-Tracheal Injury treatment. Because of the great need and urgency of this case, Mr. Roger Oxendale, the CEO of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, authorized bringing Elkin to Pittsburgh for evaluation and medical care resulting in potential surgery. The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh agreed to cover the hospital and medical care costs for this complex reconstruction surgery.

With innerCHANGE spearheading the multifaceted effort, arrangements were made to bring Elkin and his grandmother to Pittsburgh. This proved to be no small feat as passports, powers of attorney, visa interviews, and appropriate medical documentation were necessary; the costs incurred were covered by Gran Pacifica. Airline accommodations, ground transportation and translation services were arranged. Carl Ross, Professor at the Robert Morris University’s School of Nursing, and his family opened their home to Elkin and his grandmother while they were in Pittsburgh. The Rotary Club of Pittsburgh, which is leading the Rotary effort in supporting the CHESS project, covered local support costs for Elkin and his grandmother.