Page 22 - WBG June 2023

WAD CARES Dear members of WAD,

When your first child is born, and the moment your child looks you straight in
your eyes... expressing nothing but love and trust... you are instantly filled with
a new dimension of love. But at the very same time with the deepest fear that
something can happen to him or her, at any time, anywhere... At least this is
what happened to me, when my first-born Micky looked me in the eye, and we
experienced this soul connection.

It was somewhere in May 2009, and we were living the kushi life in Aruba. What
could happen? Only four months later September 22nd, 2009, Micky and his
mother were hit by a drunk driver in a horrible car accident on the island.

Five months old Micky barely lived. He survived two brain surgeries in Bogotá
and two years of extreme epilepsy. Micky was now three years and with his
severe brain damage in need of extensive child rehabilitation, specifically
paediatric physiotherapy, preverbal speech therapy and paediatric
occupational therapy. Micky’s needed hours and hours of therapy, day in day
out for weeks, months and the years to come.

But Aruba did not provide any of these. Child rehabilitation did
not exist. “Aruba is too small”, the doctors told us. “Move to the
Netherlands where you will have all you need.” Instead of moving
to the Netherlands Micky’s mother and I, after two successful
pilot projects created Micky’s Foundation. An organization
focussed on only one thing: child rehabilitation for the
children in Aruba with severe neurological problems. In
this way we were able to provide Micky with the best
therapists from the Netherlands and Belgium and help
many other children and their families in Aruba who
were told the exact same thing: “You better move to
the Netherlands”.

Since the Aruban government, nor the national
operating system of the Aruban health insurance
(AZV), nor the hospital have invested in child
rehabilitation, over the years we have created great
awareness with these organisations. However, till
today there is still no system in place that provides
the therapy like Micky’s Foundation is. But because
of the continuous supply of our highly qualified
therapy, we have opened many important doors.
We are currently in the process of supporting the
first ever Aruban paediatric physiotherapist with a
Master’s Degree, to have her contract (to open her
practice) from the AZV... acknowledging the need of
specialized child rehabilitation.

This will be a huge success in years of lobbying and
maintaining our promise: providing high standard
child rehabilitation therapy to 40-50 children on
a weekly basis. In this way we have provided over
13.500 therapy hours in the homes of the children,
by over 50 therapists spread out in 26 back-to-
back projects with a duration of three months each.
One Aruban paediatric physiotherapist is a good
start but barely enough. So, Micky’s Foundation
continues to exist.
20 W.A.D Beyond Global