Project Managers Flemming and Elisabet Hansen

Cebu City, Philippines
Channel of Hope Cebu

Project No: P27
Project Managers: Flemming and Elisabet Hansen

Contact Info:
flemming@channel-of-hope.org

Flemming and Elisabet Hansen have managed Channel of Hope (COH) in Cebu since 2000. Their Danish-Philippine volunteer teachers' program arranges for student teachers from Denmark to do their internship in the Philippines, where they carry out their practicum at different schools and institutions. This program has really caught on in Denmark, so many students request this placement for their internship, an opportunity to help teach street children and those growing up in the slums.

Channel of Hope Cebu supplies volunteer teachers to an Australian-based missionary organization whose sole aim is to help poor children get a future outside the slums, through helping them learn to read and write and prepare them for a full education.

Additionally, Channel of Hope Cebu organizes free dental camps for underprivileged families. Sparked by an article in the Danish Dental Journal in 2002, dentists now travel regularly from Denmark to work with local dentists in providing dental care to the needy. Most of the dental missions are arranged on the island of Cebu, but in recent years the dental program has expanded to include treating the poor who live on the nearby islands of Bohol, Negros and Leyte.

To donate to this Family Care Foundation Project, please note Project NAME and then click here.

Volunteer Education Program

Christina, shown with fellow volunteers,taught for 6 months at this school and adoption center.

Martin and Trine teaching children at the center: A class on the country of Denmark.

Our cultural exchange program involves student teachers from Denmark spending time in Cebu to help out as volunteers in the poorer schools and institutions.

Dan, an IT man from Copenhagen, together with 2 girls who live on a garbage dump.

Christina, one of 50 Danish student teachers who came to Cebu.

Their duties include teaching children who literally live in rubbish dumps and harbor slums. This serves two purposes.

Dan and Natalia served as volunteers in Cebu for 6 months.

Cooking for the school children at the rubbish dump is part of the experience.

1. It gives the poor people a helping hand, and the children a broader vision as it connects them with people from another continent and culture, giving the children hope of a better life away from the slums.
2. The young men and women go back to Denmark as changed persons. Seeing the conditions that the poor live under, malnourished children, people dying simply because they lack money to buy basic antibiotics, changes their lives and most of them go back with a desire to help in one form or another, either in trying to get sponsors for our work here, or sponsoring the education of a child.

Maria from Denmark speaking to women prisoners in Guadalupe.

Teaching the local kids teamwork skills through fun and games.

Depending on their circumstances, the student teachers stay in the Philippines for anywhere from 3 weeks to a 3-6 month internship. For those who remain for the longer periods, we offer a house for accommodations, a home away from home, instead of them living in a hotel.

Dental Mission

Treating people from Pier 4, the harbor slum, in this warehouse lent by a Chinese businessman.

Dentists who came from Denmark working hand in hand with Channel of Hope volunteers.

Many children in the Philippines never brush their teeth simply because their parents cannot afford to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste and have no knowledge of its importance.

Dr. Maiken with one of her patients at Maghaway elementary school.

George, a bank manager, volunteered to assist Dr. John Christensen.

Research shows that 97% of the Philippine population suffers from dental cavities. And 77% of all Filipinos have never visited a dentist in their life. The average 12-year-old has 5 decayed permanent teeth, and more than 90% have never had any treatment.

 

Micky assisting Dr. Maiken Mansfeld.	Kids anxiously waiting for their turn.
Working with Cebu Dental Society, Department of Education and a host of volunteers.	Josh, a young missionary, seen here assisting Dr. John Christensen with a patient.
Leila Hansen working on the patient registration and reporting.	Trine, Danish volunteer and Dr. Inger Manon organizing tools.

Dental Mission team partnering with Mandaue and Cebu Dental Societies.

In this 4-week Dental Mission 1,987 patients were treated by Danish and local dentists.

Dr. Mette Sofie Christensen treating a patient in Jaclupan, Talisay.

Hansen teen working as volunteer, helping to assist the foreign dentists.

Using mobile equipment from KADVO, a Japanese based foundation.

Happy beneficiary, thankful for the treatment.

The Dental Team gathers in Cebu City.

Dental Team being received in Ormoc.

Celeste sterilizing dental instruments.

Oral examination of 6th grade kids.

"Nice Smile" Dental Clinic a reality!

It had long been our dream to have our own mobile clinic. In past years, while organizing dental missions in depressed areas, we determined to be able to offer long term solutions to the immense dental problems facing poor children.

Working to set up the clinic, Flemming Hansen instructing Dr. Dino Natividad and Dr. Mona Rica Melecio in reporting procedures.

Flemming with Gabriel (technician) and Marie Tangalin (reporting, registration and record keeping), dentists and our first patients.

Our Nice Smile" dental clinic is now a reality. Through sponsorship from the Danish Rotary Club, the United Nations Women's Guild of Geneva, Switzerland and local sponsors, we were able to launch our free dental clinic, "Nice Smile" at the beginning of 2006. Rotary pledged to pay the wages of 2 dentists and 1 secretary/assistant for one year, and through the other sponsors, we were able to purchase all the needed equipment and some of the needed materials and medicine.

Our need is now sponsorship for medicine and materials on an ongoing basis. We believe that treatment together with regular tooth brushing as well as information and education will help pull these kids up to a healthy standard of oral care, and a brighter future with beautiful smiles.

Basic Oral Care Program

Flemming visiting elementary school in Mandaue to monitor the Oral Care Program.

How to use a Toothbrush class with Uncle Thor. “OK, now brush up and down like this!”

Having witnessed the sad state of oral hygiene standards of poor children in the area, COH launched a tooth-brushing program in Mandaue City in four government elementary schools and six government daycare centers in 2004. We can provide toothbrushes and toothpaste for only 20 pesos (US$ 0.40) per child/year, this step alone greatly improving the children's oral hygiene.

Toothpaste and toothbrushes for elementary schools in Mandaue.

M. Flemming and Elisabet donating toothpaste and toothbrushes.

As of June 2005, the Oral Care Program has now been adapted to cover all the elementary schools and daycare centers in Mandaue City and in Nov. 2005 seminars were held in Talisay, the city to the south, where implementation will start at the beginning of the school year in June 2006. We are working closely with the Department of Education and the Department of Health (who oversees the daycare centers).

Food programs

Susanne Hansen from COH serving the families at pediatrics ward of VSMMC, together with Danish volunteers.

Susanne Hansen taking the opportunity to cheer up the young wards in the pediatrics ward with Sally the puppet.

COH distributes food weekly to children in different hospitals and institutions. Restaurants take
part in this event, providing the children with nutritious and wholesome food and snacks. Through sponsorship, COH also buys needed food items that we distribute to indigent families at the pediatrics ward of The Vicente Sotto Medical Memorial Center.

Marie from COH cooking with large pots, helped by sponsors of the activity.

Kids from school class enjoying their lugau (rice, chicken and vegetable stew.)

We have been expanding our food program to the poor of Cebu City. Seeing that elementary schools in the hinterland of Cebu are very poor, and up to 40% of the children are malnourished, we have focused on a particular area where we provide food for 3 schools.

We can feed 1000 students only cost 180 US$, with local companies and individuals helping to sponsor this program. School children are otherwise absent from school because they have no food, and some attend only half the day, being too weak to concentrate. Can you help with financial sponsorship?

Marie Tangalin with volunteers serving the students their lunch.

Kids and teachers enthusiastically help with the clean-up.

Elementary school children enjoy a nutritious lunch.

Sweet Filipino girls, with full tummies and contented smiles.