Like every evening Elias Barla, a Telephone Cable worker in Cuttack, the oldest city of Orissa, India was returning home on his old bicycle after a hard day’s work. It gets gloomy around 6 o’clock in the evening and it is a lonely place.
Elias heard a child crying behind the bushes. At first he thought it was an animal but out of curiosity he got off the cycle and started searching for the source of noise. He was astonished to see a new born baby left in the bush with some old cloths. Nobody was there to help him rescue the baby. Anything could have happened at night. It was very difficult to take the baby on his bicycle so he rushed home to bring his wife.
His wife was kind enough and agreed to support him. They rushed back and his wife examined the baby with a torchlight to check whether the baby is alive and found it was a new born girl baby with a cleft lip deformity. They decided to take her to home.
They brought the girl child home on his bicycle and washed her with warm water and tried to feed her some milk. The following day they took her to the doctor and he told them that the baby also has a cleft palate. Upset n hearing this and eyes rolled with tears they thought that the future is bleak for the child. They then realized that the baby might have been from a very poor family and this facial deformity added gravity to the distress poverty which might have forced her parents to do away with the baby. Although, the baby was very fair she was a cleft baby. As Barla doesn’t have a girl baby except their only 5 year old son, therefore they decided to bring her up as their daughter and named her Namita.
A few months later they visited the nearby Catholic Church. After the mass they visited the Parish Priest for her baptism. The Parish Priest knew contacted Maaya Foundation for help. On consultation with Dr. Sobhan of Maaya Foundation it was suggested that they perform a surgery after 6 months as the child was only 4 months old.
The baby Namita was brought to the Maaya Foundation Cleft Centre in Bubaneshwar the surgery in January 2010 and it was a successful surgery. Barla and his family were very happy to see the beautiful face of their Godsend baby after the surgery. It was a great day of joy for the Barla family. Mr. Elias Barla says: “We really want to convey our gratefulness and thanks to the donors, doctors and organizers without whose support it could have meant hard days for us and our daughter Namita”.
Yet another joyful day for Maaya Foundation and the supporting organization, the German Cleft Children’s Aid Society.
If you wish to put smiles and gift lives to many more Namitas, then contact us at +91 80 41474618 or mail us at info@maayafoundation.in
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