Recognize Potential ~ Implement Ideas ~ Catalyze Change

Early Childhood Intervention through Baby-Massage Therapy

Offering Orphans a Chance at Life

Already since many years, Alexandra Walz has been massaging babies in Kirgiz orphanages. An extreme lack of personnel and little education for these few caregivers result in the children receiving little or no physical and emotional contact.

Yet a child’s ability to develop normally is crucially tied to having physical and emotional contact in the early months of its life. Often we see orphans of age three who are on the development level of a 12 to 18-month-old and are completely apathetic. When these children receive regular physical and emotional attention over several months, they begin to catch up and develop like normal children.

Since several years, this project has been supported by members of Aufwind-Uplift, especially by Maren Ernst, and we have ensured ongoing financial contributions through the sale of Kirgiz wool-felt handicrafts and through donations. Local Kirgiz women have volunteered to massage and care for these children on a regular basis. In return, the volunteers receive a training course in baby massage therapy, their transport costs, and a symbolic fee as recognition for the long hours they put in traveling to and with the children.

Local Women Become Multipliers

Contrary to the many negative expectations expressed by foreign “experts” in Kirgistan as we started the Baby Massage Therapy project, the Kirgiz volunteers have been very responsible in their engagement, see the input from their training course as very important and, inside a short time, have taken on the role of multipliers and carriers of the project.

This basic massage therapy has given the babies and toddlers treated a real chance of developing in relatively normal fashion despite their living in orphanages. This is confirmed by ongoing neurological studies that show regular physical contact in the first 18 months are crucial to healthy development of the brain.

The Result: We keep going!

This project is truly outstanding in its positive results: The process has activated volunteer service and engagement in the community, which in turn effects the orphanages themselves and other public institutions. Additional homes and medical institutions have approached us because they are interested in these methods and want to apply them too. We are particularly delighted at one measure of enormous success: 18 of the 50 children treated have been adopted during the relatively brief period of the project – and in particular many (prefer a number) have been adopted by local Kirgiz families.

This is where we come in and where we continue to work: we are organizing courses in which baby massage therapists with international certification as trainers come to Kirgistan and educate local medical personnel and other qualified participants in the method. These participants can not only provide therapy but also can in turn become trainers.

We need your Support

We are still seeking support to help finance this project. Please make a donation or become a sponsor.