You Can Help...

The Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children in Katowice does a truly remarkable job - but they desperately need more funding - both for improved facilities for their youngsters and to improve staff training.

If you can help with donations or with fundraising pleases contact Father Bernard's Childrens Fund today. We look forward to hearing from you.

Director Dr. Aleksandra Kaluzna and FBCF Chairman Edmund Szymczak outside the Centre in Katowice.

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Eggs For Hope 2001

FBCF General Secretary Mike Oborski and those eggs!

Scroll down to find out how you can get involved!

Tenth Anniversary of the Centre in Katowice- Photos of the celebration Mass.

  

Father Bernard's Childrens' Fund

Under the Communists the heavily industrialised region of Upper Silesia in South Western Poland became the most polluted place on Earth!

Children were poisoned in their mothers wombs by the vast quantities of heavy metals and pollutants in the air they breathed and in the crops they ate!

The incidence of brain and physical damage at birth was the highest in the World.

At the end of the 1980s Government experts stated that there was not one totally fit child in the whole region.

Despite the great strides which have been made by the post-Communist Governments in Poland the region today has a sad legacy that will last long into the future.

Father Bernard's Childrens Fund (registered charity 328677 in Great Britain) was established in 1990 in aid of the children who are the victims of the industrial pollution of Upper Silesia.

Today we work closely with the Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children in Katowice.

Eggs For Hope 2001

We can supply traditional Polish hand painted wooden eggs for sale at £1.00 each in Churches, Schools, and Clubs across the West Midlands of the United Kingdom in the run up to Easter 2001.

ALL proceeds will go direct to the Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children in Katowice. We do not deduct any administration or handling costs!

If YOU can help please get in touch!

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Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children in Katowice

The Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children in Katowice is described on a commemorative plate at its entrance as a gift of human solidarity to help the disabled children.

In 1988 a Committee was formed chaired by Dr Aleksandra Kaluzna, who is now the Director of the Centre, and within two years - on 15th December 1990 - the Centre was opened in the presence of town, regional, and church authorities.

At first part of the State Health Service since January 1993 the Centre has been run by the Katowice Aid Foundation for Disabled Children as an independent health care institution.

The Centre is mainly a unit of medical rehabilitation dealing with:-

  • diagnosis and therapy for motor disorders of various origin, especially connected with central nervous system damage;

  • diagnosis and therapy of other dysfunctions accompanying the CNS motor dysfunction mentioned above;

  • diagnosis and therapy of Sensory Integration Disorders;

  • screening examinations in Kindergartens;

  • diagnosis and therapy of faulty postures.

The Centre helps and professionally guides:-

  • a daily care group of 43 children who stay in the Centre from 8am to 4pm and receive therapy, care, and meals. Some of them have to be driven to and from schools co-operating with the Centre;

  • outpatients, often 100 a day, visiting various specialists in the Centre - doctors and therapists;

  • groups of children for fixed periods (often about 3 weeks) - a day stay comprises a multiprofile rehabilitation of children and specialist instruction for parents - these are often children from poorer families in small towns and villages in the area;

  • posture groups where children train in small groups with one therapist working with three to six children at the same time.

Comprehensive rehabilitation is provided in such disabilities as cerebral palsy and other disorders caused by birth hypoxia and intrauterine fetal anoxia, intracranial bleeding, encephalitis and cerebral meningitis, prematurity etc..

A great number of children with congenital abnormalities, minimal brain dysfunctions, faulty postures and all sorts of injuries receive various types of professional help.

Basic procedures available at the Centre include individual physiotherapy based on the principles of NDT-Bobath method or Voita method; occupational therapy for children staying there daily; sensory integration therapy; therapy in the pool; hydrotherapy; physical therapy - orofacial therapy; therapy for faulty postures.

Staff include doctors specialising in the medical rehabilitation of children; child neurologists; physiotherapists; speech therapists; psychologists; occupational therapists; dentist; nurses; ward attendants; and bathing helpers as well as various technical staff.

The Centre is funded by by donations from the local authorities, the Katowice Aid Foundation for Disabled Children, and donations from individuals.

The Centre also runs specialised courses and training including classes for the Silesian Medical Academy.

Youngster from the Centre.

Dr Aleksandra Kaluzna, Director, and FBCF Patron Archbishop Szczepen Wesoly outside the Centre in Katowice.

Get In Touch

Father Bernard’s Childrens Fund
6 Osborne Close, Kidderminster, Worcs DY10 3YY, Great Britain

Tel: 01562 823911, Tel (Abroad): 00 44 1562 823911
Fax: 01562 861145, Tel (Abroad): 00 44 1562 861145

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Patron

Archbishop Szczepan Wesoly

Committee

Chairman : Edmund Szymczak

Vice Chairmen: Jerzy Szauman-Szumski & Maria Lee

Treasurer : Henry Lemiech

Jenny Davis : Wladyslaw Kosciukiewicz : Brenda Lemiech :
Betty Maciocha : Pam Maleszewska : Fran Oborski :
Ks Jacek Trochim : Barbara Whitmore : Brenda Zych

General Secretary : Cllr Mike Oborski

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